Saab’s owner National Electric Vehicle Sweden said it intends to lay off up to 200 of the Swedish automaker’s employees as it attempts to reduce costs during its restructuring process. After briefly restarting Saab 9-3 production late last year, in May of this year NEVS ran out of cash and was almost forced into bankruptcy. In August, it was thrown a lifeline by a Swedish court, which gave the struggling firm time to restructure and source new investment.

NEVS said that since it won’t be able to restart production until a new investor is found, which it admits may take some time, it will need to make the layoffs to help preserve what little cash it has left. NEVS says it will retain some Saab employees to maintain the plant in Trollhättan, Sweden so that production can be restarted quickly when necessary.

NEVS plans to present its latest restructuring plan to creditors on October 8. Many of the creditors, mostly Saab’s suppliers, are said to be happy for NEVS to restructure as this is the best chance of Saab production restarting.

According to previous reports, NEVS's most recent restructuring plan was to transfer the rights of the still-in-development Phoenix platform and its associated staff and equipment to a new subsidiary. Half of the new subsidiary would then be sold to an investor, and the income generated from the sale would be enough to settle any debts and restart production.

NEVS has said it’s in talks with two major automakers, one of which is believed to be India’s Mahindra.

Stay tuned for an update.

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