Presumably because most EV buyers are super informed, and will recognise a car "converted to be an EV" (my Peugeot) versus a ground up EV?
And then reusing old brands is just fun/cool.
There really not, those says are long gone. For the most part they are just normal car buyers, many of which are getting them because the tax man hasn't yet decided to take their pound of flesh from them.
I wasn't suggesting that they should have made a multi energy platform as many have done. I was more suggesting VW's buyers would have probably been more comfortable buying an electric car styled as a Golf and marketed as a Golf than they would have an ID.3.
Exactly that. Even VW hasn't lost the plot enough to go all in on EV with their established products like Golf and Passat which leaves them the option of going converted ICE which gets slated or creating a new product.
As above, I wasn't suggesting they go all in but to take a 'leaf' out of Renault and Fiat's book and run what is effectively two different vehicles, one ICE/hybird and one electric using the existing branding. For example the Megane ICE and electric are two distinct vehicles but they are both Meganes. They don't even look the same.
The same applies to the Fiat 500, granted the ICE 500 has already been binned off but they ran them side by side for a while.
The names are so benign that they are easily replaced with the recognised names once they do go purely EV.
The early adopters will buy it whatever it's called, Mr Not-So-Sure is going to bide his time and will feel much easier buying a Golf when the time comes.
That's the thing, we are well past the early adopter phase in 2024. If the Golf name is eventually going to take over from the ID.3 (which is something also think will happen), why spend all the marketing money and capital inventing and promoting the new brand to later bin it in favour of the existing branding. It makes as much sense as Twitter being rebranded to X.
Audi, BMW and Mercedes are modifying their existing vehicle branding in a very minor way and I expect the 'etron', 'i' and 'EQ' monikers will be quietly dropped once everything is electric. This makes so much more sense to your typical car purchaser.
You've got the 'in the middle' brands who are going a bit of both like Kia and Hyundai but I'd suggest the brand recognition with their specific models is far lower than VW and the Golf which pretty much everyone recognises.
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