Volvo and Geely?

So, Saab was bought by Koenigsegg, a luxury sports car manufacturer extraordinaire. Volvo, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be as lucky, as it appears they are in the process of being bought by Chinese car manufacturer Geely, who are best known for their fine selection of metal death traps, or "death vessels" as China Car Times calls them, and their embarrassing and poor copies of well known car models.

I'm guessing acquiring Volvo is a way to improve the safety of these cars by utilizing Volvo's technology. It's harder to see what Volvo could possibly get out of this marriage. Not much, I'd say.

Too little, too late, Audi

Apparently Audi are aiming to launch a Q5 hybrid in 2011. That's two years from now, and way too late to jump on the hybrid-wagon. Who will buy a car with old hybrid technology when there are plugin-hybrids available or right around the corner that will take you to and from work on battery power alone (in a time when fuel prices will probably be soaring again, like they did in 2008)?

Volvo seems to have understood this, and have abandoned their plans for a V70 hybrid, focusing on launching some kind of plugin hybrid model in the V70 size range in 2012.

So, Audi, could we hope for a Q5 plugin-hybrid, or will it be a hopelessly outdated hybrid with marginally lower fuel consumption than its diesel counterpart?

Photo: Captain Nandu Chitnis, Master Mariner

Koenigsegg and Saab

It seems true then, that Koenigsegg will be buying Saab Automobile, backed by a number of large investors.

Will this mean that Saab will finally get to broaden their model palette, and actually get some of their pretty cool concept cars into production during my lifetime? And will they possibly include some fancy schmancy technology from Koenigsegg as well?

I know I wouldn't mind a Saab 9-3 with a 800+ hp BioFuel engine...

No matter what the future brings it's still bound to be a much better deal than Saab ever had over at GM.

Photo: createordie