Forget about VW of America’s tweet that it would be using Voltswagen as an added name on its US market electric cars.
Turns out that it was a thing we hear little about since Donald Trump lost the US Presidency – fake news, generated by VW of America’s marketing arm.
When the story broke late on Tuesday our time that Volkswagen was switching to dual names on the US market – Voltswagen for EVs, plain old Volkswagen for petrol-powered cars – the initial response from journalists was that VW was playing an April Fool’s joke.
The timing of the release – March 29 – lent credence to that notion.
But the mystery deepened when VW removed from its website an apparent draft of a press release, dated April 29, saying that from May 1, it would begin using the name Voltswagen.
Respected US magazine Car and Driver wrote on Monday that it was trying unsuccessfully to get someone at VW to confirm the Voltswagen name.
But “at the moment it’s unclear whether the report of a potential name change is nothing more than an April Fool’s Day joke attempt by (VW).”
There was an about-face by most American media outlets on Tuesday when VW of America, using Trump-style communications, broadcast a tweet confirming the name change, and followed it up with an “explanatory” official news release on its website. The story seemed to have some credibility – at least for a few hours.
But then the journalistic big guns started roaring. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal ran stories saying that the name change tweet and press release were “a marketing stunt.”
That attention triggered a confession from VW of America. It slipped into damage control and released a statement saying that its name would not be changing.
The VW statement read: “Volkswagen of America will not be changing its name to Voltswagen. The renaming was designed to be an announcement in the spirit of April Fool’s Day. We will provide additional updates on this matter soon.”
How did it go down at VW’s head office in Germany? Authoritative US magazine, Automotive News, quoted a VW spokesperson at headquarters in Wolfsburg as saying it was “an interesting idea” from the marketing department.
A hint there of “we are not amused?” Maybe.
It appears the fake name-change story was an attempt to gain publicity for VW’s push to electrification in the US following the reputation-damaging and financially costly dieselgate emissions scandal where the carmaker cheated in official US tests and got caught out.
American news reports say some VW executives have been frustrated that Volkswagen’s EV programme for America hasn’t had as much coverage as Tesla’s or General Motors’.
VW plans to have EVs account for 50% of its US sales by 2030.
It also aims to invest 16 billion euros on electrification and digitalisation by 2025, and has committed to sell one million EVs worldwide by that time.
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