The world of electric vehicles has a naming problem. Toyota sells something that rhymes with “bees-forks,” Volkswagen might not have left enough room between the ID.3 and ID.4, and Audi’s even-number program ought to lead to a little showroom confusion. However, when you have successful branding for EV technology, you stick with it. Well, unless you’re GM, in which case, what do you do? That’s right, you get rid of it entirely. The Ultium branding is dead, but the cells themselves will live on.
At the same time, bankrupt EV startup Fisker continues to shoot itself in the foot, Dacia has a new crossover with a moderately amusing name, and Volkswagen wants to be abundantly clear that what you’re about to see isn’t the new U.S.-market Tiguan. Alrighty.
Yep, we’ve got all of this coming up on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. Matt has left me in charge this morning and, oh boy, here we go. So, make yourself a cup of tea or coffee or even a cappuccino, pull up a chair, and pretend to be working. Here’s a run-down of all the bite-size car news you need to know about this morning.
GM Kills The Ultium Name
Why is it that so few automakers seem to know how to market EVs? From meaningless alphabet soup names to shuffling branding, it seems that brands including Toyota and Mercedes-Benz have set themselves up for a dead-end in the future. The latest example of a car company playing with EV branding? General Motors. After years of thumping the Ultium trade name for electric vehicle batteries, GM announced at an investor day that the company’s through with that. As Reuters reports:
One focus at GM’s event is its Ultium Cells battery technology, which investors saw during tours of the battery and EV assembly operations at the company’s Tennessee plant.
The automaker will no longer use the Ultium name on its batteries, Kurt Kelty, head of battery cells, said. Moving forward, GM will be more flexible with battery chemistry and configuration, he said. Moving away from the Ultium name is significant for GM’s branding of EVs, especially after the company highlighted it in Super Bowl advertisements.
Wow, imagine having the resources to spend Super Bowl money pumping a carefully crafted brand name, only to throw it in the bin a few years later. Of course, the subtext here is that GM may use non-Ultium cells in some future electric vehicles, but this begs several questions, not the least of which is why GM would sacrifice pumping its moonshot to level the perceived playing field with other cells. Mind you, a singular name like this may need to be killed anyway before future-generation cells result in branding jumping the shark with Ultium “Like A Rock” Solid-State Cells or something like that. Anyway, I guess if you’re a major automaker looking to launch a next-generation EV push, keep it simple and avoid spending a whole bunch of money on branding that’ll be thrown away soon anyway.
Fisker Will Have To Pay For Recalls After All
Last month, we reported that bankrupt electric vehicle startup wanted owners to pay for labor costs associated with recalls. Well, that bold move has worked its way through the legal system, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Department of Justice has effectively told Fisker to get bent, and that all costs of recalls are solely the responsibility of the manufacturer. As Reuters reports:
As a part of Fisker’s bankruptcy plan, the manufacturer is required to remedy defective and noncompliant vehicles “without charge when the vehicle … is presented for remedy,” the filing showed.
Fisker did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The Justice Department also said that the part of the plan where vehicle owners could get reimbursed for paying for repairs out of their pocket also violates the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act.
At this point, it’s astonishing that Fisker thought it could get away with sticking owners with labor bills for recall work. Like, who thought this was a good idea? Just when we thought we know what rock-bottom looked like, someone tunnels through the bedrock. Anyway, from here out, Fisker Ocean owners holding off on recall work should be entitled to get it performed for free, and owners who paid out of pocket will likely be compensated.
This Is Not The New Volkswagen Tiguan
This is the new Volkswagen Taryon, and for a while, everyone thought that it would be identical to the next U.S.-market Volkswagen Tiguan. It turns out, that’s not quite the case, and Volkswagen even launched a preemptive media release strike, stating that:
While this model is widely reported to represent the next version of the Tiguan for the U.S. market, be advised that while the U.S. Tiguan will receive the long-wheelbase setup of this model, the sheetmetal, powertrain options and equipment set will differ markedly. More details about the U.S. Tiguan offer will be forthcoming later this year.
So, this seven-seat compact crossover isn’t the next Tiguan for America, but it might be sorta close. At a minimum, the platform underneath will be the same, and it wouldn’t be surprising if some of the interior tech carries over, but the resulting vehicle will look different to the long-wheelbase Taryon. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing that styling will be revised. Hold that thought.
Does What It Says On The Tin
Good news! Dacia has unveiled a new car. It’s a two-row family crossover that’s a little bit longer than a European-market Volkswagen Tiguan, has door handles on the C-pillars like a Nissan Xterra, and although it’s basically a Duster from the cowl forward, the back half of this car is substantially larger than that of Dacia’s existing crossover. The best bit? It’s said to start at less than €25,000 including VAT, and once you subtract VAT and convert to American dollars, and that’s less than $23,000 for a spacious family crossover.
However, the best part of this entire affair is the name. See, instead of plucking something from the heritage books, Dacia’s called it the Bigster. Like a Duster but a bit bigger, the Bigster. There’s something delightful about that. Imagine if the Toyota Grand Highlander was called the Big Highlander, or the GMC Yukon XL was called the Yukon Big. There’s just something inherently entertaining about it that I can’t quite put my finger on.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Sometimes you just want to listen to some gloriously trashy EDM, and this track from Ninajirachi and MGNA Crrrta scratches that itch perfectly. The vocal slices, masonry saw-like synths, and absolutely bombastic kicks sound straight out of 2011, but the ultra-fast pace and sheer intensity of DAW layering are products of an extremely online generation. Yeah, “Angel Music” dropped just last month, and it’s quickly become a favorite. Long live excess, long live maximalism, long live the party.
Your Turn
So, which EV-specific branding do you reckon will be the next to fall after Ultium? I reckon it could be the Toyota convention bZ4X fits into, but there are also some continuity problems with the naming of Mercedes-Benz’s EQ lineup in relation to its combustion models.
(Photo credits: GMC, Fisker, Volkswagen, Dacia)
Dropping Ultium doesn’t feel too different to me from Toyota dropping the “Prime” name from their PHEVs. Ultium might even be lesser known outside of car-interested people as a term at all.
Do buyers really care, nah, but pretty common for the efficiency things get some branding to start out. I am reminded of ~10 years ago when an “Eco” or “FE” trim was offered on many a small car or even some bigger vehicles. Ford’s Ecoboost branding was in full effect, everyone was trying to push some branding of their own. Most weren’t on the turbo train yet, but it usually included things like direct injection, or a CVT. Mazda held on to the SkyActiv badges for a while, the PureDrive badge was short-lived on Nissans. And Honda had Earth Dreams which didn’t get exterior badging.
The Bigster would have the best chance of success here sizewise, a bit smaller than a CR-V/Forester/etc, but boxier than like a Crosstrek. I’d be very tempted by a manual mild hybrid one that wouldn’t come here anyway. Can’t tell if the full hybrid has a 4×4 option, which it would need to gain some marketshare here. Seems like Renault group is a bit more separate from Nissan because it could slot in Mitsubishi showrooms below the Outlander. Or if that Stellantis-BMW-Renault merger were to happen, a 7-slot grille would fit really well in front…
Maybe GM should take a page out of Dacia’s truth-in-naming playbook and replace Ultium with “Heavy.” So you can have the regular Silverado or the Silverado Heavy.
Then the long-range version can be the Extra Heavy Chevy.
I haven’t seen any badge or sticker with the Ultium word in my Blazer EV. The only place I could find any information was the window sticker, that’s it.
Voltec at least had a meaning or sounded more familiar to the regular user. At this point Voltec should have been as popular as Duramax.
Their lineup should be Gas, Duramax, Voltec and Ultium.
I submit GMC, Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac? Seems consistent with the last bunch of decades.
Maybe car manufacturers should not be trying to make their EV offerings be named or look so different than their IC counterparts, maybe the boomers and grumpy old people will just buy them not realizing that their car is powered by magic and tomfoolery.
We need Dacias here in the US.
That would be such good news.
This would be bigly good news.
Having just seen a Dacia (rather dozens of them) I must say I wholeheartedly agree.
Sounds a bit like the ultium name was associated with one particular design and chemistry and since the pricing, even at scales seems to mean the basic Silverado with that tech is double what it was originally intended to be from a pricing standpoint they are abandoning it. think of it like the Solyndra lIght pipes. Big obama Fiasco, built in the US and they were for the most part good, even perhaps better than the competition, but the pricing was hard to overcome for a product with already terrible ROI, and as a result they could not really use that name on cheap Chinese standard flat panels without diluting the benefits of the company in general.
Don’t flatter yourself GM, nobody was bragging about their Ultium based EV.
“Oh you have SK cells, well I have the Hemi Version of EV power. Yeah, it’s got an Ultium.”
it’s wild how they can’t figure out that no one really cares.
Gentlemen, we’ve got to protect our phoney baloney job’s.
WAIT, Dacia announced a new car!
James May
Ultium should have been GM’s way to separate their EV’s from ICE. Which Equiblazerado do you want, dear customer? The Ecotec or the Ultium powered one? Did you know that there’s an Ultium At Home station to plug your Ultium vehicle into? And when you’re on the road, the Ultium Charge network can get the vehicle powered again in the time it takes to get a cup of coffee?
You’re welcome, GM. That’ll be $1 million. I work cheap.
The sad part is that’s actually cheap in this realm. My Alma Mater spent a bit over a million dollars on ad Ad agency to redesign the school logo. They changed a straight line into a swoop. That was it. Every time they ask for donations, I laugh as I throw their mailers into the trash.
My alma mater kept calling and asking for donations even though I repeatedly told them I was unemployed and that a degree from their university wasn’t helping. I also pointed out to them they had done absolutely nothing to help my job search, not even a welfare call or a survey to see how their graduates were doing, just calls shilling for donations.
After a few such calls the flunkie on the other end finally admitted she was getting a lot of feedback like that.
I can see why Ultium is being killed off. Ultium seems to indicate the ‘ultimate’. There cannot be any further development if you have already hit the ultimate product.
Maybe GM thought the Ultium would be the final evolution of their EVs until that was killed off and focus was back on trucks and large SUVs?
Dacia can next rip a page out of Netflix’s playbook and call the performance version “Qwickster”. And a pickup truck version called Dumpster.
Dumpster is taken. It’s called the Cybertruck.
COTD here, congrats.
If the Bigster is the possible platform for the Tiguan, would it be fair to call it the Biguan?
Naming the battery tech was silly to begin with. No one in the buying public cares. They want to know range, charge times, etc. They don’t care about the battery name. It’s just like waaaaaay back when Java first got big, and Word Perfect had TV ads that screamed “written in JAVA!” Amazingly, 99% of the people didn’t care what language it was written in, they wanted it to work.
It does work sometimes. Intel has convinced the buying public of the value of whatever new name they are selling their chips under repeatedly. Actually, now that I say that, a slight riff on them might be a great marketing name for EV tech. Acceleron.
Naming things related to the powertrain is something GM has been doing for ages. Hydramatic, Blue Flame, Vortec, Quad 4, Ecotec.
Iron Duke “Hey there Pilgrim, I got 90 horses comin’ at ya”
Northstar, Turbo-Fire, Cross-Fire. And until they branded it “3800”, it was called “the 231” for decades.
I love the Fire Power name and the valve covers on that classic engine look amazing, but EV’s should have that nickname since they catch fire…like Lucas Electrics: “You don’t even have to add your own replacement smoke”
I’m not sure they knew that, or that anybody knew that until they tried.
Duramax, Allison, Hellcat, Hemi. You never know what branding will work until you try. Consumers are unpredictable.
Not a week goes by where someone doesn’t call me on the phone asking for parts for a “Dodge Cummins”.
That’s a brand name that shouldn’t have been dropped. Everyone still calls a “Ram” pickup a Dodge, even the fanboys.
Maybe GM (and others) should try branding EV platforms like they did engines, especially in the 60s. Names like Cobra Jet, Wildcat, Turbo-Fire, Magnum, Commando, TNT, Max Wedge, Super Duty, but skewed toward the electric side and varying by number of motors, output, battery size, etc. Electric Jet, Super Spark, Power Ranger (maybe not), something like that to spark excitement and identity. Maybe you buy an EV Charger: is it powered by a Dyna Wedge or a Slant Six Volt? Tells you what you want to know, right there.
Buick Electra
This will just end up being like Blackwing, where the name of the cars and the name of the engine/battery have no correlation.
It still amazes me GM spent obscene money developing the Blackwing engine from the ground up, only to kill it entirely after 3 model years instead of finding another platform to put it in. I get it was expensive to make, but they seriously could have thrown it into a Silverado for a hard-core F150 Raptor fighter and people would be eating it up.
Cadillac should have had a version of the C8 with the Blackwing engine and the hybrid system from the E-Ray.
That was nuts and a shame (or at least it seemed cool). Not only did they just eat hundreds of millions on an aborted engine, but the few cars it was installed in were basically damned as it’s not like there’s going to be a surplus of available parts in the future and I haven’t tracked resale, but I imagine that’s pretty bad, too. No idea is they had issues, either, but a new hot V engine from GM? I wouldn’t want to be stuck holding the bag on that. Might have made for a decent lease.
Bring back Voltec baybeeeee
Intel, Nvidia, and AMD have been doing this kind of painted-in-a-corner branding for years. Three and four and five digit numbers that have no room to tick over into next year’s model without changing the whole scheme. Encoded tricks where each digit in each place value means something different, even misleading (thinking of AMD in particular here).
I have no idea who or how people get paid to brand things, or more accurately how they get to keep their jobs. A CPU model number definitely isn’t as important as naming the Maverick the Maverick, but bz4x is cat-on-keyboard nonsense that someone got paid for. Contrived retronyms and/or grossly perverted MENSA tests to parse a model name should be an automatic firing.
“bz4x is cat-on-keyboard nonsense that someone got paid for”
This is good 🙂
Somebody here once called the bz4x the Busy Forks, and that name stuck with me.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll always call it
Usually my cat just stands on one key until I make him move, so if Toyota was using a real cat on keyboard, it would end up something like sdffffffffffffdssssssssss.
An improvement!
I call it busy forks…some prefer busy spoons or busy knives
I think dropping the Ultium name serves a few purposes.
I mean just branding it as your umbrella brand doesn’t mean you have to iterate. It’s like their Duramax brand – the engine installed in a 2024 model is different from the one in 2002, but it’s still the same branding.
I think that sort of thing was exactly their intent. Duramax, Allison, Ultium. It was worth a try I guess, but apparently it didn’t work.
I think partly because with engine families and transmissions, it’s generally understood how to differentiate them from each other, such as “the dreaded 6.0 PowerStroke” and “X-Speed Allison” while batteries are a lot harder to differentiate. Sure you’ve got chemistry, but also cell type (pouch, cylinder, if cylinder size is wildly variable), voltage configuration, integration specific challenges, etc.
It’s clear GM tried to do what GM does, create a random brand to accommodate *shiny new thing* but had no vision on how to do it in a meaningful way. It was more of a “throw names into marketing material and see what sticks” sort of approach.
Ultium Surge…in my high school they had an all Surge machine…they were only a quarter!
Ultium Cold Filtered, Ultium Bock
New Ultium Zero.
Ultium Dry
Ultium ICE. Shit that makes no sense …
Jolt.
I remember Jolt Cola. All the sugar and twice the caffeine.
Mountain dew was much more conducive to all night coding sessions. Jolt was for rookies.
GM can put whatever marketing spin they want on this, but the reality is that Ultium has been a disastrous headache behind the scenes. Rollout has been incredibly slow, just remember how badly fumbled the Hummer EV launch was, then the Blazer EV stop sales immediately on launch, and so much more. GM can move away from the name and technology all at once. Not to mention the average consumer could not possibly care less about some fancy name for their EVs battery technology. The people who DO care about their battery tech will just get annoyed by the marketing obfuscation. The only winners here are the marketing firms that GM paid millions of dollars to.
I will forever think of Ultium as “weighs as much as a car but is just the batteries.”
They may as well develop specific branding for their axle nuts.
EVs are not a whole new thing to sell. They’re just vehicles. Sell them as such.
It’s probably less than 15% of drivers who could accurately describe the engine under the hood of their car as far as displacement and configuration – nevermind fuel delivery or engine control. Forget about the E, focus on the V and just sell it like everything else on the lot.
I mean, some appreciable fraction of people believes FEMA is killing people in NC and that the storm was steered there by, well, someone.
It probably is necessary to market vehicles that need to be plugged in to fuel differently from those that fill up at a gas station, or those that can do both.
Jesus Christ. Of course people believe that.
The Republicans have guns, so the Democrats went bigger and got hurricanes.
*Wasn’t it the Chinese with the hurricane generating weather machines during Trump’s first term? It’s like a bad movie starring Sean Connery based on an old TV show that also shares a name with Earth’s mightiest heroes.
Zardoz?
No, but now that you mention it, the first 10 minutes or so of that movie are pretty fitting to that demographic. Damn, now I have to watch the beginning again.
I was just riffing on the bad movie, Sean Connery, secret society overlords thing. Might have to watch it again. It’s been decades since I last saw it. IIRC it was almost as atrocious as the political circuses real time streaming for us today.
I first watched it in high school as part of a cheesy movie night and it was one of the few that stuck with us, mainly because of the beginning and it became a chant we’d shout. I barely remember the rest even though I saw it again about 10 years ago.
I saw it at the theatre when it was released. We did the same meme, before memes. It was so jarring to see Connery tarted up like that after the mega chad Bond movies. Weirdly cool movie.
It must have been a rough few years for him. Still, I recommend it to people as it’s one of those weird movies that actually has some value beyond forgettable entertainment. Now that I’m thinking about it, I remember more than I thought—he’s brought into a city of immortals who have become either apathetic or petty power tripping HOA board members to bring death to them all and I recall a scene where they punish some guy who disagrees by giving him a kind of psychic lobotomy and they age people for other punishments—but the beginning is . . . well, it’s something.
The Zardoz was a false god used to control the prols by the immortal richies. Connery and company busted in and went all bolshie on the 1%. My 40 or so year recollection of the movie. Probably more nuanced interpretations out there.
I thought Connery was enticed into riding inside the head by the other floating head that starts the movie that I only remember because he’s quoted in a Thrill Kill Kult song: “Is God in show business, too?” I don’t remember how all the other fashionable dudes got into the immortals’ place at the end.
I’m relying on possibly hazy, foggy and likely faulty memories from 40+ years of debauched living. I knowmi watchedthe movie, but the recalled details arent vivid.
Yes, but does fueling become a discussion on every other vehicle?
Does the sales guy go out of his way that it’s going to cost you $100 to fill up your Tahoe ($150 in CA)? But it’s not even something as real-world as this.
The Ultium branding is like trying to market the fuel tank of an ICE car as something special.
The hurricane machine hasn’t been used since W. Why would he do it now?
Space laser guys?
No. This is rain, not wildfires.
Please do your research. The mainstream media will not give you the facts.
Is the hurricane machine in orbit like the space lasers or is it under the ocean somewhere? I’m pretty sure the earthquake machine is under a mountain.
It’s surprising small. Like the size of a deck of playing cards.
W probably found it in some still-full boxes from when he moved out of the White House.
There’s a backup hurricane machine in the basement of a Whataburger in Houston, guarded by all the tunnel children Trump has rescued.
God bless those tunnel children! I heard that the earthquake machine was previously guarded by the mole people, but they all moved to Michigan to steal good paying union jobs and eat people’s pet fish. Now, pretty much any left wing freak can walk right up to the machine and cause an earthquake!
The mole people all got jobs in the department of interior. They were well suited to the work, so the next administration kept them on.
The pet fish are actually the ones guarding the earthquake machine now. The eating thing was just a cover so nobody came looking for them.
“and that the storm was steered there by, well, someone.”
Gays usually. Something, blah, blah, something “God’s wrath”.
You’re certainly right there. The number of listings on Facebook or custom “Boomer Boards” at car shows that can’t even get the engine configuration right by people that care is hilarious. So many BMWs with “Inline-V6” or just “V6” is shockingly high. Honorable mention to the OG IS300 which is commonly listed as a V6.
All that to say, most people don’t care, and if they did care, don’t know enough for it to matter regardless, salesman will spout off whatever “Fact” they want, and the average consumer in a GM dealer will not know better. Ultium sounded like a fun branding exercise that ended up netting GM nothing.
Don’t forget every listing for a reasonably-priced Porsche with a manual transmission that has an automatic 100% of the time.
Or the fact that I’ll intentionally filter out SUVs and Trucks in FBM to narrow things down to what I’d be interested in, and the results are almost entirely 3-Row SUVs and beat up pickups people want too much money for.
I always cringed at the 454 buicks, 426 fords, 351 camaros and the like. I suspect that many of the forums posts are from the basement dwelling keyboard warriors yet to earn a valid learners permit.
“They may as well develop specific branding for their axle nuts.”
Kinda like Ford script bolts.
Is this a real thing? How far behind the real world has my cynicism fallen?
“Is this a real thing?”
Yes:
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/228850.html?1313080485
“How far behind the real world has my cynicism fallen?”
Given these script bolts (maybe) started with the model T? Pretty far.
I need to contemplate some things.
I think it was less about the public and more to give investors a stiffy when they were throwing money at anything EV and, in that case, it probably worked out.
GM is just living up to their reputation I guess
It’s already October. Where’s the PHEV Tiguan and Atlas? One of these days I’m just going to get a used XC90 Recharge if VW doesn’t announce the PHEVs over here.
BMW i for EV’s, because could you imagine a BMW Mi4 which reads as Me-Four
But there could be a Mi6 and that would be cool.
Nah, they’ll fuck it up and only have an iX6 M
That is the only way they could justify Bond driving a BMW. (Poor Pierce Brosnan)
I do feel like GM missed out while Sex in the City was popular by not calling the 3-row Escalade the “Escalade Big”
Also, could Nissan just dump its existing lineup and just become Dacia’s US beard? Just bring over everything with the bare minimum of changes to meet FMVSS, and keep the cheap and cheerful?
Also, marketing departments will always screw up model naming by having either far too much or far too little confidence in the buying public, and/or not asking a non-marketing person “does this sound stupid?”
Like when Ford went all in on naming all their cars with an F and ended up with the Freestar. It sounds like the name of a spaceship in a b-grade sci-fi movie.
Coulda had the Freebase?
Jac Nasser must have been hopped-up on goofballs when he thought that one up. “All Fords must start with ‘F’, and all Mercurys must start with ‘M’, because product decisions should be analogous to Sesame Street, I guess.”
Today’s Ford, brought to you by the letter F.
Why didn’t they do the same thing at Lincoln? The Lincoln Lowncar for example.
Lobotomy?
I’ve always had the feeling that the “Ultium” program was kind of a shit show behind the scenes, maybe the branding change is just because everyone involved is still traumatized by the troubles that happened in development.
Anyone who has worked on program launches at GM is traumatized in one way or another.
“Of course, the subtext here is that GM may use non-Ultium cells in some future electric vehicles, but this begs several questions, not the least of which is why GM would sacrifice pumping its moonshot to level the perceived playing field with other cells.”
If Porsche believes it can use “Turbo” on it’s higher-performance Taycan, then I would think GM can use Ultium for non-Ultium batteries.
GM again, with the naming of electric cars that are just names they already use on ICE ones, but the cars are completely different and one of the E’s in the name is blue. Confusing even before being difficult to render in plaintext or while speaking.