Volkswagen Rebrands to Voltswagen for North America

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Volkswagen poised to change its name to 'Voltswagen' as it invests in electric vehicles

(For Electric Vehicles in the US Market)

This is apparently a leak, but I have a real hard time believing it isn't a leak of an April fools joke.

 

[Moglet]

Their official Twitter has posted about it so it doesn't appear to be a leaked April fools joke!

 

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

Volkswagen Rebrands to Voltswagen for North America

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on March 30th, 2021 in the Automotive News category.

 

[Tornado]

I hope they change the logo to be green so people know that it's just as insultingly cynical as when GM did so.

 

[GranTurNismo]

Why is this change only for the US market? Is this some sort of subtle implication that their electric vehicles will be boring?

 

[Famine]

Why is this change only for the US market?

I'd hazard a guess that the US market is very small for them and a place where they can reinvent their (tainted by Dieselgate, which of course barely affected North America) identity, without confusing too many consumers.

Edit: Wow. 300k sales in the USA, of nearly 11 million in total. Yeah, that'd do it.

 

[odeepaanh]

i actually hate this

 

[numbnuts70]

Definitely a leaked april fools.

 

[MatskiMonk]

 

[Famine]

Definitely a leaked april fools.

This technically leaked out overnight on a few outlets:



And my first thought was "this is an April Fool that's leaked out early". Then I find today that VW has done this, 14 hours later:




WSJ is reporting that VW AG is saying it's a marketing stunt, although I can't find where it's doing that (should be here or here; isn't). However, it appears the press release was originally dated April 29th, not March 29th...

 

[DriveSpark]

Didn't IHOP do this a year or two ago? not make EVs, I mean temporarily rebranded themselves as a PR stunt?

 

[Sasek]

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

If it's a marketing stunt to get people thinking/talking about Volkswagen in any capacity...it's working. It's actually a pretty witty move, have to get them some credit.

 

[MatskiMonk]

If it's a marketing stunt to get people thinking about Volkswagen in any capacity.

Ohm my god, why do people resist this so much, VW faced their dieselgate charges, and now they've amped up their EV program to stay current.

/sorry, not sorry

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Ohm my god, why do people resist this so much, VW faced their dieselgate charges, and now they've amped up their EV program to stay current.

/sorry, not sorry

Watt are you on about?

 

[MatskiMonk]

Watt are you on about?

Joule be sorry you asked.

 

[Nessy]

I don't think the change will hertz the brand at all.

 

[Darla Starch]

I have ampere-ical evidence that we need to keep this pun chain going.

 

[MoLiEG]

I can't take the world seriously with decisions like this.

 

[Heind]

It's an April fools joke. The domain http://voltswagen.com/ does not belong to Volkwagen. Nor has the name been officially registered as a brand in the US. I wonder why they didn't do this on April 1st though...

 

[Famine]

It's an April fools joke.

Maybe. The original press release was dated April 29th though...

The domain http://voltswagen.com/ does not belong to Volkwagen.

This affects Volkswagen of America, and its URL is vw.com. Since the abbreviation will be VW and its ICE cars will still be badged as VW, I don't see the issue.

Nor has the name been officially registered as a brand in the US.

Does it need to be? It's a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, which is.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Maybe. The original press release was dated April 29th though...

This affects Volkswagen of America, and its URL is vw.com. Since the abbreviation will be VW and its ICE cars will still be badged as VW, I don't see the issue.

Does it need to be? It's a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, which is.

There doesn't appear to be any copyright or trademark registered for the name that I could find.

Which means GTPlanet should secure it!

(Even if it was just a marketing exercise, I'm somewhat surprised they haven't registered the IP, unless there is a way to do it while concealing it for some amount of time)

 

[C-ZETA]

...Nah, I reckon they're having us on for an early April Fools.
Even if they dared to do something like this, though, couldn't they at least do a 'Citroen DS' and split just the ID. mob into a new brand?

 

[Touring Mars]

If I was being sued for $127 billion... per year... over a multi-year period... by the state of Ohio alone, I think I'd change my name too...

 

[Nielsen]

Not to fuel the debate, but I prefer Volkswagen.

 

[Heind]

Maybe. The original press release was dated April 29th though...

This affects Volkswagen of America, and its URL is vw.com. Since the abbreviation will be VW and its ICE cars will still be badged as VW, I don't see the issue.

Does it need to be? It's a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, which is.

Let's wait until the 1st of April to see who is right

 

[HuskyGT]

We lose another one... R.I.P one of my top 3 favorite manufacturers. You will be missed and I will keep dreaming of finding either one of these, restore and preserve them.

 

[lbpomg95]

I get the impression Volkswagen really thinks its consumers are completely stupid.

 

[Keef]

This is actually how a lot of Americans pronounce their name so that's funny. Nice play on words.

 

[GranTurNismo]

We lose another one... R.I.P one of my top 3 favorite manufacturers. You will be missed and I will keep dreaming of finding either one of these, restore and preserve them.

View attachment 1001032

View attachment 1001033

Off topic, but it's pretty insane how rare Mk.III Golfs/Jettas have become in the last decade. They went from being pretty common sights to almost nonexistent on the roads today.