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I can't vouch for the historiography, but Top Gear's account of why Saab went wrong is worth watching. "At one point, a GM accountant went over to Sweden to se

I can't vouch for the historiography, but Top Gear's account of why Saab went wrong is worth watching. "At one point, a GM accountant went over to Sweden to see why Saab was costing them so much money. And he got into the new 9-3, turned on the satnav, and thought "Wait a minute. That's not one of our systems." And he was right; it wasn't. Saab had developed -- at vast expense -- their own system because they thought GM's wasn't good enough." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iBgVUDUdqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iBgVUDUdqE

Dah00n 3y ago
And they were not wrong sadly.
nocoiner 3y ago
My wife drives a fairly fancy GM and it astounds me how terrible the infotainment system is. And they’re dead set on doubling down on their homegrown software and freezing out CarPlay. Shaking my damn head. I want to root for GM, I really do, but I swear they’ve never seemed to learn a lesson at any point in the last 100 years. I never owned a post-GM Saab, but I can’t imagine the Swedes were wrong in their assessment.
- giarc 3y ago
  I'm also in a fancy GM and I can't understand why I can't tell it that I prefer Car Play and not Android Auto. I still get alerts from AA about setting up my account etc. I wish I could uninstall all it's components.
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    Notifications on your phone? I have to give it to Android -- the notifications are really really customisable; you can change the sound of individual notifications and even turn them off if you want.
    - giarc 3y ago
      No notifications on the screen in the car. There is a red exclamation mark over a bell icon that won't go away unless I set up Android AUto.
- hedora 3y ago
  It's not just the infotainment system. They have (had?) a problem where the traction control would randomly engage while parking. This was bad in trucks (skid marks and dirty looks for chirping the tires were pretty common), but in the early Bolts it caused the regenerative braking to disengage, so the car would unexpectedly accelerate when it should be pulling to a stop. On its first tank of gas, our old GMC failed to start after being parked for 10 hours because the computer left the ABS system on overnight. It also had crazy software failure modes where the dashboard would go nuts and the onstar system would start making strange sounds. Arguably, the software was one of the better subsystems of that truck. Never buying GM again. Our old GMC was the best truck we've ever owned. (Much better than our new Ram 1500, which can hold less weight than our old Volvo 240 station wagon). Hopefully the F-150 electrics aren't hilariously bad.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > (Much better than our new Ram 1500, which can hold less weight than our old Volvo 240 station wagon) Hey the Ram 1500 is twice as heavy as the Volvo 240. Poor thing is too busy carrying itself to deal with your cargo.
    - aintgonnatakeit 3y ago
      RAM 1500s are truck-shaped cars. When you add in Stellantis, it’s a brand best avoided. Fun fact: 1 in 22 RAM 2500 drivers has had a DUI. Source: https://insurify.com/insights/car-models-with-the-most-duis/ https://insurify.com/insights/car-models-with-the-most-duis/
- JustSomeNobody 3y ago
  > And they’re dead set on doubling down on their homegrown software and freezing out CarPlay. Shaking my damn head. This is going to go badly for them. A lot of people (all iOS users) will not even look at a GM. The used market for them will suffer as well. But, hey, if you need a really cheap used car in 5 or so years, and you don't care about Carplay, GM has you covered!
  - daydream 3y ago
    Just buy the cheap car, rip out the head unit, and replace it with a CarPlay compatible one. Assuming you’ll even be able to do that… Could be a nice money-making opportunity.
    - colejohnson66 3y ago
      Can't do that if you lease the car, which a lot of people do. Technically, you could, but you'd have to put back the old system on lease end.
outside1234 3y ago
The GM ones are terrible. And now they are getting rid of CarPlay because it was competing too well.
alkonaut 3y ago
That's exactly why you'd buy a SAAB. And it's exactly what you'd want if you bought SAAB. The problem was that GM bought and murdered SAAB. They thought the brand itself, without the expensively engineered cars carried value. Evident by then strapping the SAAB brand to a few really lousy cars (A Subaru? Some hideuous SUV thing with zero SAAB to them other than the badge).
- rjdagost 3y ago
  SAAB was financially failing when GM bought them. It's tough to blame GM for trying to impose financial discipline on a money-bleeding operation.
  - toss1 3y ago
    Imposing financial discipline is one thing. Mistaking ephemeral "brand value" for engineering prowess and reputation (typical of marketing-oriented mgmt), as cited above, is quite another. Being required to optimize for another real-world constraint (i.e., cost in this case) is more work, but ultimately just another task for an engineer. Being required to not engineer greatest-practical-stuff, but just slap the name on some junk is not the same thing, but marketing people can't see that, even though customers can. I'm concerned about the Chinese ownership, but that seems murky now, since NEVS bought a stake or strategic partnership, then got bought 51% by Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande, which is deeply in debt, and NEVS is now in "permanent hibernation mode", essentially liquidating. I wonder if there's opportunity to get it back in control of democratic nations. Anyone have deeper information? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEVS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEVS
  - prepend 3y ago
    Saab had been nationally subsidized for a while and I think expected to receive support that didn’t work out. It was strange how all projections showed failure but they continued on. Not sure why Sweden decided to make them go independent, but if GM hadn’t bought them, they would have died sooner
- _yb2s 3y ago
  The people running and working at GM have no “taste” or appreciation for quality. They are unable to see or care how bad their products are, or how much better the competition is, and they also market exclusively to customers with the same issue. If they could see the huge flaws in their products and understand why SAAB would build their own, they could make their own vehicles decent in the first place. Driving a modern GM vehicle and being aware of these things is infuriating. They are really quite awful- aesthetically, sonically, performance wise, etc.
shever73 3y ago
They're not wrong. Saab's demise, in my opinion, started with GM. The Saab 900 was bullet-proof, but the 9-3 put me off Saab completely. It was based on GM's Opel Vectra platform and shared some components. It also has the dubious honour of being one of the least reliable cars I've ever owned - and that includes the Alfa Romeo!
- bestham 3y ago
  There were two 900s. The first one was a SAAB platform. The later one was based on Opel. That car was turned into the 9-3 later.
  - yobbo 3y ago
    The second-gen 900 was a mish-mash of various Opel and Saab parts, but had Saab drivetrain, "wrap-around" wind-shield (sort of), rear-axle, etc. It developed into the first-gen 9-3. The second-gen 9-3 was GM Epsilon-something-based and had GM drivetrain.
    - bestham 3y ago
      Yes that is right. I’ve always loved the first gen 900 since we had a three door one when I was a kid.
MontgomeryPi2 3y ago
Interesting to see Top Gear wax nostalgic on Saab when they regularly sh*t on them back in the day. Saab pushback on GM is good now but was bad then? I suspect their takes had no small impact on sales. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCpjyC6h9J4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCpjyC6h9J4
- thevagrant 3y ago
  Reminds me when they were shown to have faked problems with a Tesla they were reviewing. Many car enthusiasts I knew at the time took the show for gospel
dcanelhas 3y ago
You don't get a Saab 93 cupholder without putting in the effort https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLpW4VMVWoQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLpW4VMVWoQ
- zaphod12 3y ago
  Devastatingly, mine is stuck and i cannot unstick it! Thankfully the 2005 9-3 has another cup holder, but i miss the pop out.
happytiger 3y ago
They should have thought, “wow, this system should be in the rest of our cars and it’s already developed.” Companies can’t identify high performing small teams, because the managers that run ocean liners and tankers can’t understand how to run a small ship — and the incentives are generally reversed or at least radically different. You can be assured it was a bean counter not an engineer or product person for sure — said with love.
linksnapzz 3y ago
Oh, it wasn't just the satnav. When GM developed the Epsilon platform for small/midsized cars, they knew Saab was onboard to use it for the 2nd-gen 9-3. Saab also always had a 900/9-3 convertible, so it was assumed that other GM divisions could borrow from Saab's work for their own sporty/convertible Epsilon-platform models. Nope. When the GM North America guys saw the BOM for the 9-3, there were enough changes from the shared Epsilon components list that there was no economy to be gained by sharing the parts with the Pontiac G6 convertible. Saab made lots of expensive changes to the structure, supposedly. But...people seem real happy with their 9-3 convertibles; happier than the few I've met who've experienced the G6. I think Bob Lutz, in one of his books, talks about how Saab insisted on doing lots of things themselves or going with a different vendor than GM NA or GM EU. Like the previously-mentioned satnav, HVAC components, power window regulators.. things where some other part of GM would have a cheaper part that was better tested and likely more reliable, and that the customer would never see. Of course, GM should have let Saab continue doing its own interior trim, including its fantastic seats. And they did make Saab their center of engine control electronics and turbo powertrain development, for a time.

Dah00n 3y ago

And they were not wrong sadly.

nocoiner 3y ago

My wife drives a fairly fancy GM and it astounds me how terrible the infotainment system is. And they’re dead set on doubling down on their homegrown software and freezing out CarPlay. Shaking my damn head. I want to root for GM, I really do, but I swear they’ve never seemed to learn a lesson at any point in the last 100 years. I never owned a post-GM Saab, but I can’t imagine the Swedes were wrong in their assessment.

giarc 3y ago
I'm also in a fancy GM and I can't understand why I can't tell it that I prefer Car Play and not Android Auto. I still get alerts from AA about setting up my account etc. I wish I could uninstall all it's components.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  Notifications on your phone? I have to give it to Android -- the notifications are really really customisable; you can change the sound of individual notifications and even turn them off if you want.
  - giarc 3y ago
    No notifications on the screen in the car. There is a red exclamation mark over a bell icon that won't go away unless I set up Android AUto.
hedora 3y ago
It's not just the infotainment system. They have (had?) a problem where the traction control would randomly engage while parking. This was bad in trucks (skid marks and dirty looks for chirping the tires were pretty common), but in the early Bolts it caused the regenerative braking to disengage, so the car would unexpectedly accelerate when it should be pulling to a stop. On its first tank of gas, our old GMC failed to start after being parked for 10 hours because the computer left the ABS system on overnight. It also had crazy software failure modes where the dashboard would go nuts and the onstar system would start making strange sounds. Arguably, the software was one of the better subsystems of that truck. Never buying GM again. Our old GMC was the best truck we've ever owned. (Much better than our new Ram 1500, which can hold less weight than our old Volvo 240 station wagon). Hopefully the F-150 electrics aren't hilariously bad.
- Swizec 3y ago
  > (Much better than our new Ram 1500, which can hold less weight than our old Volvo 240 station wagon) Hey the Ram 1500 is twice as heavy as the Volvo 240. Poor thing is too busy carrying itself to deal with your cargo.
  - aintgonnatakeit 3y ago
    RAM 1500s are truck-shaped cars. When you add in Stellantis, it’s a brand best avoided. Fun fact: 1 in 22 RAM 2500 drivers has had a DUI. Source: https://insurify.com/insights/car-models-with-the-most-duis/ https://insurify.com/insights/car-models-with-the-most-duis/
JustSomeNobody 3y ago
> And they’re dead set on doubling down on their homegrown software and freezing out CarPlay. Shaking my damn head. This is going to go badly for them. A lot of people (all iOS users) will not even look at a GM. The used market for them will suffer as well. But, hey, if you need a really cheap used car in 5 or so years, and you don't care about Carplay, GM has you covered!
- daydream 3y ago
  Just buy the cheap car, rip out the head unit, and replace it with a CarPlay compatible one. Assuming you’ll even be able to do that… Could be a nice money-making opportunity.
  - colejohnson66 3y ago
    Can't do that if you lease the car, which a lot of people do. Technically, you could, but you'd have to put back the old system on lease end.

outside1234 3y ago

The GM ones are terrible. And now they are getting rid of CarPlay because it was competing too well.

alkonaut 3y ago

That's exactly why you'd buy a SAAB. And it's exactly what you'd want if you bought SAAB. The problem was that GM bought and murdered SAAB. They thought the brand itself, without the expensively engineered cars carried value. Evident by then strapping the SAAB brand to a few really lousy cars (A Subaru? Some hideuous SUV thing with zero SAAB to them other than the badge).

rjdagost 3y ago
SAAB was financially failing when GM bought them. It's tough to blame GM for trying to impose financial discipline on a money-bleeding operation.
- toss1 3y ago
  Imposing financial discipline is one thing. Mistaking ephemeral "brand value" for engineering prowess and reputation (typical of marketing-oriented mgmt), as cited above, is quite another. Being required to optimize for another real-world constraint (i.e., cost in this case) is more work, but ultimately just another task for an engineer. Being required to not engineer greatest-practical-stuff, but just slap the name on some junk is not the same thing, but marketing people can't see that, even though customers can. I'm concerned about the Chinese ownership, but that seems murky now, since NEVS bought a stake or strategic partnership, then got bought 51% by Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande, which is deeply in debt, and NEVS is now in "permanent hibernation mode", essentially liquidating. I wonder if there's opportunity to get it back in control of democratic nations. Anyone have deeper information? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEVS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEVS
- prepend 3y ago
  Saab had been nationally subsidized for a while and I think expected to receive support that didn’t work out. It was strange how all projections showed failure but they continued on. Not sure why Sweden decided to make them go independent, but if GM hadn’t bought them, they would have died sooner
_yb2s 3y ago
The people running and working at GM have no “taste” or appreciation for quality. They are unable to see or care how bad their products are, or how much better the competition is, and they also market exclusively to customers with the same issue. If they could see the huge flaws in their products and understand why SAAB would build their own, they could make their own vehicles decent in the first place. Driving a modern GM vehicle and being aware of these things is infuriating. They are really quite awful- aesthetically, sonically, performance wise, etc.

shever73 3y ago

They're not wrong. Saab's demise, in my opinion, started with GM. The Saab 900 was bullet-proof, but the 9-3 put me off Saab completely. It was based on GM's Opel Vectra platform and shared some components. It also has the dubious honour of being one of the least reliable cars I've ever owned - and that includes the Alfa Romeo!

bestham 3y ago
There were two 900s. The first one was a SAAB platform. The later one was based on Opel. That car was turned into the 9-3 later.
- yobbo 3y ago
  The second-gen 900 was a mish-mash of various Opel and Saab parts, but had Saab drivetrain, "wrap-around" wind-shield (sort of), rear-axle, etc. It developed into the first-gen 9-3. The second-gen 9-3 was GM Epsilon-something-based and had GM drivetrain.
  - bestham 3y ago
    Yes that is right. I’ve always loved the first gen 900 since we had a three door one when I was a kid.

MontgomeryPi2 3y ago

Interesting to see Top Gear wax nostalgic on Saab when they regularly sh*t on them back in the day. Saab pushback on GM is good now but was bad then? I suspect their takes had no small impact on sales. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCpjyC6h9J4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCpjyC6h9J4

thevagrant 3y ago
Reminds me when they were shown to have faked problems with a Tesla they were reviewing. Many car enthusiasts I knew at the time took the show for gospel

dcanelhas 3y ago

You don't get a Saab 93 cupholder without putting in the effort https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLpW4VMVWoQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLpW4VMVWoQ

zaphod12 3y ago
Devastatingly, mine is stuck and i cannot unstick it! Thankfully the 2005 9-3 has another cup holder, but i miss the pop out.

happytiger 3y ago

They should have thought, “wow, this system should be in the rest of our cars and it’s already developed.” Companies can’t identify high performing small teams, because the managers that run ocean liners and tankers can’t understand how to run a small ship — and the incentives are generally reversed or at least radically different. You can be assured it was a bean counter not an engineer or product person for sure — said with love.

linksnapzz 3y ago

Oh, it wasn't just the satnav. When GM developed the Epsilon platform for small/midsized cars, they knew Saab was onboard to use it for the 2nd-gen 9-3. Saab also always had a 900/9-3 convertible, so it was assumed that other GM divisions could borrow from Saab's work for their own sporty/convertible Epsilon-platform models. Nope. When the GM North America guys saw the BOM for the 9-3, there were enough changes from the shared Epsilon components list that there was no economy to be gained by sharing the parts with the Pontiac G6 convertible. Saab made lots of expensive changes to the structure, supposedly. But...people seem real happy with their 9-3 convertibles; happier than the few I've met who've experienced the G6. I think Bob Lutz, in one of his books, talks about how Saab insisted on doing lots of things themselves or going with a different vendor than GM NA or GM EU. Like the previously-mentioned satnav, HVAC components, power window regulators.. things where some other part of GM would have a cheaper part that was better tested and likely more reliable, and that the customer would never see. Of course, GM should have let Saab continue doing its own interior trim, including its fantastic seats. And they did make Saab their center of engine control electronics and turbo powertrain development, for a time.