VW Accidentally Leaks New Name For Its US Operations: Voltswagen (cnbc.com) 66
Volkswagen accidentally posted a press release on its website a month early on Monday announcing a new name for its U.S. operations, Voltswagen of America, emphasizing the German automaker's electric vehicle efforts. CNBC reports: The release called the change a "public declaration of the company's future-forward investment in e-mobility." It said Voltswagen will be placed as an exterior badge on all EV models with gas vehicles having the company's iconic VW emblem only. To "preserve elements of Volkswagen's heritage," the release said the company planned to retain the dark blue color of the VW logo for gas-powered vehicles and use light blue to differentiate "the new, EV-centric branding."
The release said Voltswagen of America would remain an operating unit of Volkswagen Group of America and a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, with headquarters in Herndon, Virginia. Volts are the derived units for electric potential, also known as electromotive force, between two points. General Motors previously used Volt for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle between 2010 and 2019. The VW press release was incomplete, citing the need for an additional quote and photography from the automaker's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
UPDATE: VW later said the name change was an April Fool's Day prank which had leaked early.
The release said Voltswagen of America would remain an operating unit of Volkswagen Group of America and a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, with headquarters in Herndon, Virginia. Volts are the derived units for electric potential, also known as electromotive force, between two points. General Motors previously used Volt for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle between 2010 and 2019. The VW press release was incomplete, citing the need for an additional quote and photography from the automaker's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
UPDATE: VW later said the name change was an April Fool's Day prank which had leaked early.
"Accidentally" posted 3 days too early (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, you fell for that?
Re: (Score:2)
really.
all those smart marketing types and the even smarter diesel engineers.
v w still hires the most efficient.
dumb asses
Re: Volt (Score:2)
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Err, no, it is the elecric potential, not the derivative.
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Err, no, it is the elecric potential, not the derivative.
Derived unit != derivative.
1 Volt = 1 kilogram * meter^2 / (Ampere * second^3)
Volt is the derived unit. Kilogram, meter, Ampere and second are the base units in the SI system.
Don't Tell Anyone! (Score:2)
Make sure that everyone knows that it was a secret. It's better for marketing that way.
April fools day... (Score:3, Funny)
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Same idea here.
I mean "Voltswagen" it just sounds terribly bad, but well "Voltswagen" did many equally terribly bad things in the past.
Re: (Score:3)
It probably was their April Fool's Day joke that just got leaked. This reeks of the IHOP commercials where they claimed they were becoming IHOB.
Rolls eyes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Whhaaat?
It's Volkswagen. A lot of their car names are fucking terrible, so this one seems about right.
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It's Volkswagen. A lot of their car names are fucking terrible, so this one seems about right.
Could get worse, they could make a Voltage Wagon [imdb.com] (scroll down a lot)
Upcoming scandal (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
For emissions testing the car will operate by a crank.
How do you know that cranks haven't been driving those cars already?
Re: Lame (Score:1)
The by far dumbest point: It would have been easy to just agree on a standard and have automated battery quick-swap stations.
It would mean "recharging" in 39 seconds, and always a fresh enough battery, and with new tech, even more range!
That "sttructurally integrated" is bullshit, by the way. Like IE in Windows. There *are* cars with swappable batteries. (Of course sold in the dumbest possible way, where you only ever get 1 battery, and have to take it out to charge and don't get a replacement to drive with
Re: Lame (Score:4, Informative)
There are cars with swappable batteries, but their range is crap. It's critical for range and capacity to package the "battery" in a way that it's structurally integrated into the vehicle. Unless you're doing a pure skateboard with a detachable tophat, there's just no workaround if you want to go 300 miles, charge at 150+ kW, and discharge at 280+ kw for that awesome, expected electric torque and acceleration. And if you go with that skateboard design, you're not only getting someone else's battery, but their tires, motors, lack of maintenance, brakes, electronics, and pretty much everything that's meaningfully a car.
Me? I'm a body in white manufacturing engineer for a so-called "legacy" OEM who makes a pretty well-received electric pony-type car. I'm personally involved with some of battery packaging on this product, and with today's technology, you're never going to change a battery in 39 seconds. Not if you want something that resembles a car. And, I'm starting to think it's not necessary: I spent 30 minutes charging on my way home from Chicagoland today, and I spent 1:15 minutes charging on the way to Chicagoland yesterday (hotel had no chargers, so that pre-hotel stop was necessary). The time spent wasn't really all that inconvenient. Planning my route around charging sucked balls, but as more and more chargers are made available, that should suck a lot less. Tesla fanboys seem happy with their network. Hopefully EA and the others will catch up soon.
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First off: cool gig (I'm envious) and great job by your team. When I first heard the idea, I thought it was going to be awful, but you guys lived up to the name. Kudos for that.
That said:
I spent 30 minutes charging on my way home from Chicagoland today, and I spent 1:15 minutes charging on the way to Chicagoland yesterday
Adding almost two hours to that round trip seems pretty damned significant--it added 50% to the trip, if you were driving from Dearborn. I'll cheerfully grant the "charge it in your garage overnight" logic that most EV proponents push is reasonable, but if you can't (i.e. you don't have a garage, or your electrical servi
Re: (Score:2)
That time includes detouring to get to a charger, so I really attribute the problem to lack of chargers. Even quick charging at 150 kW is slower than filling up a fuel tank. Other brands can quick charge up to 300 kW, and that's STILL slower than a fuel tank. For early adopters (and we're ALL still early adopters), I think it's acceptable; Model T owners weren't always guaranteed a fillup available, either.
Ah, but my charging rate wasn't really the issue. Using my trip as an example, I travelled from wester
Re: Lame (Score:2)
That solves charge time, but not capacity. And given a fixed energy density with a given chemistry, it places the two design goals in opposition to each other.
If you were trying to use range as a selling point, then it's not in your interest to lock yourself into a fixed physical envelope. It's in your interest to pack battery cells in every nook and cranny, since there's only so much energy they can hold.
Re: Lame (Score:3)
Did you see VW's battery-I-mean-Power Day? [theverge.com] Those seem like achievable goals, if QuantumScape is to be believed.
If you want to complain about something, complain about the fact that there aren't enough raw materials being mined to make all vehicles BEVs by 2030 [axios.com].
Re: Lame (Score:3)
I don't believe just about any claim about future technology found in corporate propaganda. I also don't believe many claims about present technology I see in corporate propaganda.
Re: Lame (Score:2)
No one does, really. It's a good way to avoid being conned. There are more conmen out there than there are visionaries and most of the visionaries don't require a priori faith in their great deeds to be performed at a later date.
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I think density and charging speed are in the ballpark for mainstream rollout. EVs may not be for everyone, but they do serve most needs. The only barrier at the moment is price. I'm not paying a $10K+ premium for electric.
The gimmicky nonsense that gets on my nerves are the center-mounted touchscreens, computers galore, built-in wifi with mandatory telemetry, and the idea that every EV must be full self-driving by default. For heaven's sake, all I want is a regular car with an electric motor. Is that too much to ask?
Re: Lame (Score:2)
Solving everyone's problem 80% of the time is not the same as solving 100% of the problem for 80% of the people.
Even if an EV costs 80% of the gas equivalent, if it can't no-kidding go 350-400 miles and charge back up in under 10 minutes, I'm not buying it because it won't cover all of the things I use an automobile for and I am not one of those people who has the wherewithal to have a different car for each day of the week.
Re: Lame (Score:2)
No I do so twice a few days apart a few times a year, often pre-planned but sometimes on short notice. Every once in a while I drive 100 miles a day every day for several days in a row, also on short notice.
Good enough to sell a billion cars (Score:2)
So what you're basically saying is that since it doesn't fit what you claim your needs are, therefore electric cars can't fit anybody's needs.
Wrong.
Rephrasing: While solving 100% of the problem for 80% of the people is not the same as solving everyone's problem, it's good enough to make a billion sales.
And 80% of the people buying cars don't need to drive 350-400 miles and charge back up in under 10 minutes. No, strike that. 99% of the people buying cars don't need that. The average car in America driven
Re: Good enough to sell a billion cars (Score:2)
No, solving 80% of the problem for 100% of the people can fool you into thinking you can make billions of sales by conflating it with 100% for 80%.
Here's a not-so-subtle hint to the EV evangelists out there: if most people keep telling you they have a requirement for their vehicle that EVs can't meet, it's not because they're wrong about their own needs. If you fail to acknowledge this, you may as well be selling timeshares. The flexibility with the truth will transfer over nicely to an industry that actual
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But it's not "most people telling you they have a requirement", it's a very small minority and most of those are exaggerating. I used to drive a lot in my previous job (it was the one part that I most hated), and still would have been fine charging every night. There was one single occasion in eight years that might have been problematic (and I would have welcomed the excuse to not drive from Bellingham to Olympia).
AAA says that Americans drive an average of 29 miles per day, so charging once per week wou
Re: Good enough to sell a billion cars (Score:2)
Re: Good enough to sell a billion cars (Score:2)
Most people purchase gasoline powered cars, not EVs. Even in the same price bracket as EVs.
different cars for different purposes (Score:2)
Here's a not-so-subtle hint to the EV evangelists out there: if most people keep telling you they have a requirement for their vehicle that EVs can't meet,
"Most" people aren't saying that. You are saying that. You are a right-wing nut job.
For most people, charging overnight is fine. For some people, it's not. OK. Different cars for different people.
For that matter, most household in the U.S. have two or more cars.Thirty-eight percent of households have three or more cars [cars.com]. If you need a long-range car for family trips a few times a year, well, fine, for most households, that means that they need to make just one of their cars an electric car. There are 276
Re: Lame (Score:4, Insightful)
Gas cars will never work out. Trust me. I actually bought one.
They're smelly, loud, expensive -- they use a liquid lubricant because the parts rub on each other and you have to pay money to replace that stuff periodically. You have to take it to a special place to get fuel, and the cost per mile is way higher than a normal car.
So about 95% of the time I drive my 80-mile max range electric car I bought for $7k. It's better in just about every way.
Most of the time I drive the gas car, it's just because if I don't the brakes rust unevenly -- when that happens I have to replace the rotors, which is really expensive.
All the above is completely true.
When the gas car gets too old to maintain, I'll buy another used electric car. Something with maybe 200 miles of range. Whatever's best in the sub-$10k used range at that time. There's no way I'm buying another of these absurd gas-burning things.
And the next time I need to drive cross-country, I'll rent a gas car (or a long-distance battery car) just like I do now, even though I own a gas car, because what's practical in the city is just not practical for cross country and vice-versa.
Re: Lame (Score:1)
Leaks (Score:2)
Did they leak their plan to get past regulatory review without getting caught?
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Well, at least they'll pass their emissions test.
What does it taste like. (Score:2)
I thought VW was a car brand, I didn't know they had branched out to cheese.
Ya ... (Score:5, Funny)
Voltswagen
I heard the marketing department is really amped up about this, but no one's really sure watts going on ...
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Poor conduct.
You're saying that they're getting resistance?
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You need to be more direct. Current plans have high potential.
"Accientially" (Score:1)
Gets you the best PR coverage.
Marketing jargon (Score:3)
Need to hire better insulators.. (Score:2)
Because they're leaking... Guess they can't work in a high voltage environment.
Ok, that's terrible. Someone, please make me look like a hack by doing better.
America already calls them that. (Score:2)
As far back as I can remember, I have always heard people call them voltswagons.
With this change, Americans across the Midwest will finally be pronouncing Voltswagon correctly.
Seriously? (Score:2)
How about they fire the moron running the marketing department and hire autonomous driving engineers instead.
Bandwidth of a microbus full of...batteries? (Score:2)
How is this news ? (Score:2)
I would have preferred... (Score:2)
Why not? (Score:2)
Datsun to Nissan wasn't liked very much in the day in some markets they changed it back.
Vegemite renamed to iSnack 2.0. (unfortunately no joke)
Royal Mail renamed to Consignia.
Pizza Hut, without the Pizza, just 'Hut'. ...
The stupidity is breathtaking.
Especially since 'brands' were originally just symbols burned into a cow, the cow doesn't care, as long as it's a small logo. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
not quite a new idea (Score:1)
It was a common name for home-built Volkswagon conversions already. http://www.evalbum.com/294 [evalbum.com] http://www.evalbum.com/2563 [evalbum.com] etc.