Reborn Chinese built Rover 75 gets a hybrid variant

After British based Rover group finally ran out of gas last year, the road kill was gobbled up by two Chinese companies, Nanjing Automobile and Shanghai Automotive (SAIC). Nanjing got most of the tooling and parts, while SAIC got the intellectual property, such as it was. Both companies are now ramping up to build new versions of the last Rover models in China, with SAIC going with the name Roewe, apparently a Chinese version of Rover. SAIC showed the "new" Roewe 750 at the recent Beijing auto show, and British magazine AutoExpress noticed that they also had a new hybrid variant. Not much detail is available, but apparently low-cost is the main priority. They will apparently be using a setup similar to the Saturn Vue Green Line with the motor sitting between engine and gearbox. It seems likely that it won't be able to run in electric only mode, but SAIC is claiming a 25 percent reduction in fuel consumption.

[Source: AutoExpress]