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agrafix | 4 years ago

Hmm did they release their April 1 joke too early by mistake?

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alexaholic|4 years ago

The joke is the cars will run on electric current during lab testing, and burn fuel during normal operation

jeffrallen|4 years ago

Ouch, that's one of those "ha ha only serious" kind of jokes.

cyral|4 years ago

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/30/22357166/volkswagen-name-...

> The proximity of the name change to April Fool’s Day initially raised suspicions that it was just a joke. But VW insists that it’s a real thing, so here we are.

crazygringo|4 years ago

> "The company was apparently planning to make the announcement at the end of April but accidentally published a press release about the name change early Monday afternoon, which was first spotted by CNBC before it was taken down. The proximity of the name change to April Fool’s Day initially raised suspicions that it was just a joke. But VW insists that it’s a real thing, so here we are."

Sounds to me like a publicity stunt -- they "accidentally published" a press release a month early? Sorry, that doesn't happen.

Seems like trying to generate buzz on social media, then they'll quietly "decide" not to change the name after all, but people associating VW with electric cars more so -- mission accomplished.

HenryKissinger|4 years ago

Until companies insistence that this the real thing becomes itself part of the joke.

MattGaiser|4 years ago

Mistake? Look at all the coverage they are getting when they would otherwise be lost in a crowd.

minxomat|4 years ago

Maybe they grew tired of Americans pronouncing it wrong (most V are still pronounced as F, Vettel, Volkswagen etc.) ;-)

Edit: This German apologizes for an attempt at a humorous / sarcastic comment and will revert to work-machine state at once. Beep boop.

ChrisArchitect|4 years ago

Ya, this is like releasing superbowl ads weeks out now so they don't get lost in the flurry of activity a few days out

troelsSteegin|4 years ago

You mean like jokeswagen? http://voltswagen.com/ is a parked domain, no pun intended, so I think it's all hype.

pulse7|4 years ago

They will pay premium for not snapping the domain name first and then releasing their PR peace...

mortenjorck|4 years ago

This is the Long Island Iced Tea Corp. to Long Blockchain Corp. stunt-rebrand, writ large.

They're still called Long Blockchain; they even changed their ticker symbol to LBCC. I wonder if VW will be as committed.

arcturus17|4 years ago

I thought the same, it sounds completely ridiculous.

TLightful|4 years ago

Entirely appropriate for the new direction.

I dig it ... (speaking as someone who still sees their average cars as steam engine, emission test defeaters)

trey-jones|4 years ago

Surely this is it. I know that the wold today can be a bit stupid, but this is too much.

whoisthemachine|4 years ago

I think it's likely they're feeling that their EV product isn't compelling enough to stand out on its own, so they need to do something ridiculous to capture attention and hopefully gain market share in the EV market.

zeeZ|4 years ago

I've seen mention that this was initially supposed to be released on April 29 and gone out March 29 by accident, so... Yes?

Shivetya|4 years ago

they may not even have the site by the name registered

letier|4 years ago

Looking at the DNS records it's definitely a joke.

cpach|4 years ago

How so?

mc32|4 years ago

[deleted]

dathinab|4 years ago

Supposedly they insist on it not being a joke.

But Voltswaken, honstely if that isn't a joke it's sad. It is basically guaranteed to be a typo crisis. I can just say have fun, to all the banks and other companies doing business with it.

rriepe|4 years ago

They're now saying that it was in fact a joke.