Indian Car Blog - Carazoo.com

The adage “Born from the Jets” might be the slogan of the recently saved from death Swedish Saab car company, but guess what, the above mentioned adage will be more appropriate for the British car maker Jaguar.

We have a reason for that. Jaguar has been awarded funding from the U.K government to develop a small jet turbine as a range extender for a future hybrid Jaguar luxury car.

In stating the Jaguar luxury car, we mean the newly launched 2011 Jaguar XJ full-sized luxury sedan. This car which could get an extended-range electric model in its portfolio in a couple of years might also provide a platform for the innovative jet-powered range extender.

Yes, we call this innovative as the jet-powered turbine technology though was first developed by Rover Cars which developed JET1, the first-ever jet-powered turbine car, is one of the predecessor companies of Jaguar Land Rover, now owned by India's Tata Motors. So the technology fits the Jaguar cars to the T.

Rover Cars’ JET1 which is currently housed in London’s Science Museum, ran on petrol, diesel or kerosene and sped up to 88 miles per hour. This car also spawned a Le Mans racer developed with BRM Formula One that averaged more than 100 mph and topped out at 142 mph.

The cars that run on turbine technology is smaller, lighter and emits less CO2 which should be a welcome news for the green warriors. The British government awarded $1.8 million in development funds to develop the turbine-based range extender for electric vehicles to a consortium of Jaguar-Land Rover, Bladon Jets, and SR Drives. The highlights of the modern micro-turbine technology is that it saves more than 200 pounds over a petrol engine for onboard power generation to recharge an electric car’s battery pack, while slightly reducing CO2 emissions. The Bladon Jets turbine has just 5 percent of the weight and parts count of a typical four-cylinder engine.

There are a few drawbacks which come imbibed with this technology as it is not so good for direct drive. As Chrysler learned a decade later, when it released 56 prototypes of its elegant Chrysler Turbine coupe for real-world tests by roughly 200 drivers, turbine technology proved too inefficient and expensive for production-car use.

Chrysler's test cars suffered from throttle lag, lack of low-end torque, very high exhaust temperatures, and mediocre fuel economy (17 mpg) from their 97-kilowatt (130-horsepower) turbine engines, which powered the car through a standard automatic transmission.


Turbines also aren't particularly suited to the rapid acceleration cycles of varied driving. Using a turbine as a steady-speed source to generate electric power, on the other hand, lets it operate most efficiently and at close to its maximum output.

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What would you have done if you have loads of money with you and you are the boss of Formula One? Try getting in line to buy a car firm of course.

Yes, that’s exactly what Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is trying to do. He wants to buy the struggling car firm Saab and breathe life into it. In this process Bernie has tied up with the Luxembourg based investment company Genii Capital to launch a takeover bid.

Ever since the Motown meltdown started, GM in a bid to go leaner and meaner has put their Swedish car brand Saab for sale to try to slash the debts that they are in. Saab is a car brand that has been neglected by the GM and Bernie also is echoing in the same sentiment.

Though a clear picture of Bernie’s involvement in the bid process has not been revealed officially, it is said to at around £ 2.3 billion. Whoa, that’s a huge sum you say. Not a problem if you are the F1 boss.

Genii Capital, who are also tied up with Bernie for this bid and who have invested in Renault’s F1 racing team last month in a statement said that they were aggressively working towards a successful closing of the transaction and clinch the car firm.

But the race for Saab is getting better and better with Dutch car firm Spykar, who also have F1 connections running in to get Saab. Spykar had bought the former Jordan and Midland teams to form their own F1 team before selling the team to Force India at the end of 2007 season. Spykar is also trying aggressively to launching their own winning bid for Saab.

Meanwhile General Motors wants to concentrate on their core brands such as Chevrolet and in this regard GM boss Ed Whitacre has made clear his desire to get rid of Saab. He was quoted saying last week “Just show up with money and you can have it”. GM also has threatened to close Saab if their year-long search for potential buyers proves fruitless.

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Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg Group AB on Tuesday has backed out on its potential deal with GM to buy its Saab car brand. Call it an example of “bad timing”. That’s just what Koenigsegg Group AB’s chairman Augie K. Fabela II calls it as. He says the decision to pull out of the deal was purely due to the timing, but funding issues had been worked out.

It was just a matter of executing he plan and the plan was fully funded. KoenigseggGroup AB took some precautionary steps in earlier months to secure the deal after in August it said it lacked about 3 billion kronor ($417 million) to conclude the deal. The company went to the Swedish National Debt Office about the government guarantee for the loan it needed to buy the unit.

Though official amount for the acquisition was never announced, it was rumored that GM would get about $500 million dollars. GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said the company was "obviously disappointed," but "will take the next several days to assess the situation and will advise on the next steps next week."

The dead in the water deal lays question to the future of Saab. Saab was one of the brands GM announced it would shed as part of its bankruptcy reorganization earlier this year. It currently employs 4,500 employees a majority of which live in Sweden. GM in recent months has been eliminating existing inventory and taking steps to handover the company to Koenigsegg Group AB, a move it must now reverse.

GM might be able to find another buyer for Saab though, automakers in China and India have been buying brands from restructuring US automakers. Last year Ford sold the Jaguar and Land Rover brands to Indian automaker Tata and GM recently sold its Hummer brand to Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp.

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