It’s April 2nd and, as The Autopian does not recognize April 1st (celebrating March 32nd instead), I don’t think we fell for any April Fool’s jokes. This is good because April Fool’s Day, like many things in life, has been co-opted by The Brands. Mostly this results in some mildly humorous or mildly annoying gags, but Volkswagen fumbled the ball this year for at least the second time! What’s the deal?
You know who didn’t fumble the ball? Rivian. The electric truckmaker managed to beat expectations with slightly higher-than-forecast deliveries in Q1. Kia, on the other hand, ended up slightly down in a car market that’s slightly expanding at the moment.
And, finally, if you wanted a new Bolt your options are limited as new inventory is starting to dwindle down on what’s probably the best deal in new EVs right now.
Maybe VW Should Just Stop
I get the pressure of trying to be funny. It’s hard to try to be funny. There are only two ways to do it in my experience. Either you sort of effortlessly let something happen as the specificity of the moment meets the spark of an idea and you make a joke. The other way is to work hard to continuously refine an idea, a la the professional comedian, until you’ve nailed it.
There’s a huge gulf in between the two and that’s where Volkswagen seems to forever exist.
Volkswagen infamously pulled a prank in 2021 where it pretended to let slip an incomplete press release that said the company was changing its name to Voltswagen in honor of the growing electrification of VW. This was done so accurately that many journalists were fooled. That is, I guess, sort of the point, but Volkswagen erred in two major ways in this prank.
First, it let the press release slip early so that it didn’t actually happen on April 1st, which created a lot of confusion. This is bad. Don’t do this. If you’re going to be a brand and do a prank, just do it on April 1st or make it so obvious that no one would be confused.
Second, and most dangerously, the press folks at Volkswagen of America let journalists who inquired believe it was real. Stories went up on the wires from journalists assured it was actually happening. It impacted the company’s stock price. Once it was revealed to be a prank everyone got rightly upset.
Dear Volkswagen: You lied to me. You lied to AP, CNBC, Reuters and various trade pubs. This was not a joke. It was deception. In case you hadn’t noticed, we have a misinformation problem in this country. Now you’re part of it. Why should anyone trust you again? https://t.co/1rcKT7p0u5
— Nathan Bomey (@NathanBomey) March 30, 2021
The folks at Automotive News were pretty blunt when they printed an op-ed titled “VW lied to sell diesels; now it lied to sell EVs:”
The problem, though, besides that April Fools’ pranks are obnoxious, is that it wasn’t harmless. Even after everyone correctly assumed the company was making a lame joke, Volkswagen’s U.S. public relations department insisted, repeatedly and inexplicably, that it was entirely serious.
“We didn’t mean to mislead anyone,” a spokesman for the company that intentionally misled numerous news outlets — including Automotive News, Reuters, CNBC, the Associated Press and The Washington Post — told The Wall Street Journal. The press release, since deleted from its website, included a sincere-sounding quote from Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh, and when reporters asked, point blank, if this was a joke, company representatives firmly said no.
That’s bad. And on the heels of what happened with Dieselgate it just set the company up for comparisons, including this one from Slate titled “What Was VW Thinking With Its “Voltswagen” Prank?”
And considering the fallout from 2015’s diesel scandal, which saw Volkswagen get caught gaming the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions tests for its supposedly environmentally friendly vehicles, you’d think VW’s next attempt to promote a climate-conscious green technology would be less … duplicitous.
It was so bad the Securities And Exchange Commission had to look into it. It was just a disaster.
Volkswagen, as it tends to do, has made the same mistake this year, though the joke is more on enthusiasts than journalists, so I guess that’s an improvement.
This post went up on Volkswagen UK’s Facebook page, and it’s clearly previewing a harlequin vehicle of some sort. For those of you who don’t know, the Harlequin cars were a series of extremely popular Volkswagen Golf and Polo models done up by the factory in four different colors (green, yellow, red, blue). They are beloved by enthusiasts. Here’s
Volkswagen made the big mistake of sincerely previewing something too early. Again. British car site CarThrottle initially fell for it, though others, like MotorTrend, were a little more skeptical.
When April 1st arrived, Volkswagen unfortunately made a pretty great video highlighting the arrival of a Volkswagen ID.3 Harlequin edition with electroluminescent paint. Harlequin fans got super excited, but anyone who read the press release realized it was all a joke:
The mischievous paint design is set to return this April for the Volkswagen ID.3 – but this time with a trick up its sleeve: the car will have electroluminescent paint similar to the ID.7 concept that Volkswagen unveiled early in 2023. The ID.3 Harlequin’s panels will light up and pulse in response to beats from the car’s sound system and integrate with the new ChatGPT functionality being rolled out across the Volkswagen range.
The limited-edition ID.3 Harlequin is available from 1 April; designs can be viewed on Volkswagen’s online configurator using the code ‘JEST 1’.
In the words of Hannibal Burress:
It does, indeed, suck. Volkswagen violated the key principle of April Fool’s by announcing something that seems too real too soon. Here’s how it was received in the Autopian Discord:
The Harlequin ID.3 is a great idea and something entirely achievable by Volkswagen [Ed Note: And I’d argue the car could use a bit more excitement. Aside from some software issues, the car is solid, but a bit boring. -DT], so it’s less a joke than a taunt. It’s a cruel reminder that VW could make something awesome and, instead, has chosen not to so it can go on and build a bunch more Atlases instead.
Man, it’s almost like all the funny people in Germany left or disappeared for some reason. Weird.
Rivian Beats Expectations
We already updated you on how both Tesla and BYD faltered in Q1 of 2024 as a weak economy in China and other extraneous factors contributed to a slide in EV deliveries.
Rivian is the one EV automaker that did slightly better than expected as it managed to deliver 13,588 vehicles (some, presumably, the Rivian Amazon vans) in the quarter and make 13,980. The original estimates were for closer to 12,000 vehicles, so this is a win.
From Rivian:
Production and delivery results during the first quarter of 2024 were in line with Rivian’s expectations. For the full year 2024, management is reaffirming guidance for annual production of 57,000 total vehicles.
Overall, Rivian’s expectations for the year are pretty conservative as it prepares for the approach of the Rivian R3.
March Sales Are Probably Up Overall, But Not At Kia
March will end up being a good month for the car industry with estimates anywhere between 5% and 12% year-over-year according to Automotive News, but one automaker facing another kinda meh month is Kia.
What’s going on? There are a few contributing factors.
Kia had a great 2023. It was a record year and being just 2.6% off of last March isn’t a huge deal, overall, although in an expanding market it means Kia is losing market share. But where?
The big drop is in deliveries of cheaper cars, specifically the Kia Soul and the Kia Rio, as well as the long-gone Stinger. If you take out the roughly 2,200 sales that disappeared in March with the discontinuation of the Rio it’s an up month. The Soul, too, was down about 1,700, but that may just be from better competition within the Kia showroom.
A solution to this might be coming in the form of the attractive Kia K4, which should hopefully gain back some entry-level sales if it can be priced right. Sales of the excellent Kia Carnival continue to rise, at least, showing some people have sense. EV sales at Kia were also up 151% with the introduction of the EV9.
Farewell Chevy Bolt
The Chevy Bolt is GM’s best-selling EV of all time so, of course, the company temporarily discontinued the model before realizing that was a terrible idea and deciding the Bolt would come back, at some point, eventually.
It’s a great car and it’s also a huge shame that there’s this big lacuna in between the outgoing model being available and the new one coming on the market. According to Cars.com there are fewer than 1,000 models for sale nationwide and they’re all 2023 models.
If there’s an upside here for consumers it’s that the vehicles still qualify for the full $7,500 tax credit plus another $1,000 in GM employee discounts according to the Detroit Free Press:
Gordon Chevrolet in Garden City has sold 10 Bolt EUVs so far this year and has one left on the lot, said Gordon Stewart, owner of Gordon Chevrolet.
A 2023 Silver Bolt, priced at about $32,000, is still available, Stewart said. While he has not had any customer interest in it for the past 30 days, he is confident it will sell because there is a GM employee discount of $1,000 and it is eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit.
“They’re not sale-proof; they are priced right,” Stewart said. “We’ll sell it. We’re not worried about selling it. When you only have one, someone has to like the color and all the features.”
What a bummer. The Blazer EV is too expensive and the Equinox EV will eventually be cheap enough, but who knows how long it’ll be before the actually cheap Equinox EV actually goes on sale.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I’ve had Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album on repeat, including listening to it while driving from the hill country of Texas to the coast. It was quite the soundtrack as we passed the gnarled mesquite and few remaining fields of bluebonnets and indian paintbrushes that fill the roadside ditches with ponds of color every spring. The album features a lot of familiar voices, including Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, but it’s the appearance of Linda Martell that’s the key. Martell attempted to build a career in country music as a black woman in the ’60s and ’70s and eventually gave up after facing a wall of sadly predictable racism.
Viewed through that prism, “Cowboy Carter” is a quixotic attempt to open a door that’s historically been closed to performers of color. And while I don’t particularly love the “Jolene” reimagining, the album is pretty easy to listen to for something that’s attempting to break genres.
The Big Question
Is there an example you can think of where a brand did a good joke on April 1st?
The problem with VW’s adverts, all across the board, is that everything they’re putting out right now is just serving to remind us all of when VW made exciting, interesting products. I see those commercials and have that moment of remembering working on a Type 3, pulling the engine out of my brother’s beetle, cruising around in the camper van, just having a great time in old VWs. But if you watch those ads (even this fake one included), all is does is dissapoint you that the only things they make now are uninspired narcolepsy-mobiles that are undoubtedly going to end up costing you a fortune in repairs.
VW used to make great commercials (Pink Moon being the best of them to me), but they also had the products to back it up. Those days are sadly gone, and reminding us of them only works against them
Back when I had a VW and they were actively sending me marketing materials, fully 50% of anything they sent me (and I mean that literally) was about the Bug and Bus, and I don’t mean the new ones either. It’s like even they didn’t want to talk about their current products.
Somehow it seems perfectly on brand for VW to “jokingly” announce something that would be insanely popular only to say “j/k, April fools!!!”
I remember John Cleese recounting how Germany wanted Monty Python to air over there, he said the Germans came them and said “we don’t have a sense of humor, but are told you do….” Seems that’s the case with VW still, they just don’t know how to humor. Maybe ChatGPT can help them with that.
The only Automotive April fools I (and most people) liked was the M3 truck. But then they did it too many times and it’s a dead horse now.
Volkswagen lied, Dubbers cried.
It’s like someone taught VW what funny is by reading them 3 Stooges episode transcripts.
Oh, a wise guy. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
The K5 actually looks to have been the single biggest drop in Kia’s March sales YoY, from 5774 to 1174. It was the slowest selling model of nameplates still in production (aka excluding the Stinger and Rio). They sold more EV9s actually which surprises me a bit. YTD the K5 is down by about half of what it was last year. This is probably more due to the model changeover of the facelifted 2025; Hyundai had some steep drops to the Sonata late in 2023, but Q1 2024 remained pretty level. But I don’t get the sense Kia will be pushing the K5 that hard either (they’ve dropped it in Canada entirely) while Hyundai still seems more committed to the Sonata.
You could make the case the Forte already has enjoyed sales growth over the years pulling from the Soul and Rio, as 2023 was the Forte’s best-ever sales year. I imagine Kia is banking on getting more upper-trim sales out of the K4 and some of those could certainly be would-be K5 buyers. Not to mention the return of the hatch with the K4 which almost always goes for a little more coin than a sedan counterpart.
Also brands on social media generally get an eye roll from me every day of the year. Everyone wants their “Wendys Twitter” moment but has a better shot of going viral for a flop.
Good analysis! Yes, the fall of the K5 is pretty big as well.
“Man, it’s almost like all the funny people in Germany left or disappeared for some reason. Weird.”
Damn! You’re certainly not wrong, but damn!
I somehow missed that line in my first reading and I was wracking my brain to find a way to say the obvious without saying it outright.
Maybe an uninvited back rub would loosen them up.
Flula Borg
If one wanted the VW Harlequin look, they could easily have theirs wrapped. It’s a lot more achievable.
CarScoops had a decent one:
https://www.carscoops.com/2024/04/electric-pokemon-cards-expose-fatal-flaw-in-teslas-anti-theft-measures/
Also, GM Authority and Ford Authority ran the same one this year: an announcement of a super long bed pickup, only available in a stripped down version. Seemed relevant for some people here.
I have been thinking about a super long bed for a while now. I have an f150 with an 8′ bed, and if you have a toolbox making it a ~6′ bed, it’s easy to use the whole thing. I would actually use a 10′ bed, even on a half ton with limited weight capacity. I don’t really know why a 10′ bed pickup has never been a thing, ever.
9′ beds were around in the 60s but died off. You can still get chassis cabs with a wheelbase long enough for a 10-12′ bed but that requires a 1 ton chassis.
Holley did one in ’21 and one in ’22. The “Moonshot” nitrous system that is like 10 nitrous plates and claimed like 2000 HP. And they also did a LONG runner intake for a v8 (like 4 feet tall), called the “SkyRam” intake. Those were pretty great “products” that got a good laugh.
The SkyRam was funny, but it kind of wasn’t a joke because it actually worked. See Thunderhead289 video on the topic.
Because VW is a joke. VW reliability is a joke. German “engineering” is a joke LOL
How may times I’ve read something about VW and been like, “you’re joking right” and then it’s not a joke… I guess putting something out there as an actual joke just doesn’t hit.
Wow, yeah I actually always thought “Voltswagen” was awesome and it just fits perfect…but not in reality, especially changing the name of a company that has been around for so long- it was be like changing the Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, etc.
I love the Harlequin but have to make a joke about that reveal:
“Ok, so when I saw the part about ChatGPT, I knew it was a complete joke!”
Sadly the chatgpt part is actually real
https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/world-premiere-at-ces-volkswagen-integrates-chatgpt-into-its-vehicles-18048
Oh yeah, I did know since I read everything on this site and that’s actually why I made a joke about it…but yeah, thanks for the heads up!
I have to add that yeah, it was more along the lines of for example: someone rents a car (could be any brand) and finds out all the bad features or lack of:
“ChatGPT?! What a complete joke!”
“Haptic buttons? What the hell?
Glovebox entry under 3 layers of menus? What in the actual fuck?”
“Buttons for turn signals instead of a stalk? AND a yolk? Damn! Where’s the nearest cliff to drive off of?”
“2 switches for 4 windows? Talk about idiotic!”
“Electronic emergency brake? Get a life!”
“Electric door handles? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of!”
“Completely confusing gear shifters including IN A SCREEN?
What stupidity! I just backed into an FBI van!”
“A million screens and driver nannies? Get the fuck out of here- I’m selling this and getting an old school VW Beetle!”
Leave it to Volkswagen to pull a prank whose punchline is disappointment.
You’d be a fool to believed a harlequin announcement, given that only monochromatic cars sell these days, but they could at least have done the damn thing ON April 1st.
How can they go from the iconic Unpimp Your Auto campaign to this?
Even a grayscale Harlequin would have been a better joke. At least then you know they’re aware of the suck.
Black, white, silver and grey. Here’s your storm cloud of sad.
Honestly, that would be a million times funnier,, especially if they used the Taos. “Now you can be boring in 5 different shades of sad! Available with the two-point-meh TFS-IDon’tCare and 4Motionless. Here’s to another decade of doing absolutely nothing ever since Piech left and our cheating got exposed before everyone else’s”
I don’t have any personal reason to love the guy, but damn, I miss his moxie. I bet if he had stuck around we’d have a VR6 in the Arteon, making the platform actually worthwhile.
They did make a grayscale Harlequin during their ad campaign for the MkV Rabbit. Advertisements had a black and a white rabbit drive into a tunnel and then a whole bunch of other black and white rabbits would come driving out kind of a play on rabbits multiplying. And they’d always show one of the rabbits as a grayscale Harlequin as if it was the mom and the dad rabbit genes mixed together
Road & Track used to do one joke review in every April issue, presented exactly like their normal reviews. One was a tank, and one was the moving platform that carried the Space Shuttle to the launch pad. Those were pretty good.
They also did a complete parody magazine called Rod & Truck as an insert in the mid 70s. Other April 1 tests included a parade float, a blimp and a gasoline powered pogo stick (the Hop Rod)
I think it was R&T that did the Triumph Spitfire vs Supermarine Spitfire comparo. They also ran a GoodYear blimp around a track, wheel on the tarmac the whole way around. Good times.
The Harlequin models became popular in a cult classic kind of way, but I don’t think they were popular at first. I recall reading stories about dealers reassembling multiple cars into a single color or selling Harlequins at a discount because they were inventory poison at the time.
If you were lucky, you’d get one that was all-green. The Harlequin was the only Mk3 Golf available in that shade of green in the US.
Also the only Golf available in that purple.
And weirdly, those are now by far the most valuable Harlequins.
I’m seeing Rivians ALL OVER THE PLACE lately. They’re everywhere. And I’m here for it. Those are some good looking vehicles. I can’t wait for the R3 to hit the streets.
None of the ones roaming my area are the Amazon vans either. I finally saw my first two of those in the wild last week, and I was about 50 miles away from home when I saw them.
The vans are extremely regional: Amazon is deploying them only in certain areas. I have never seen one on the road here in Idaho, but in the Salt Lake/Provo area, they’re EVERYWHERE.
I have mixed feelings about Rivians, mostly because they are exactly the kind of insanely expensive crew cab tiny bed pickup that’s marketed for offroading but still way worse off-road than a real jeep or something, that is basically what’s wrong with the US automotive industry in 2024. The r3 looks nice though.
I am in Portland, OR, and there are a lot of Rivian vehicles here. I would say a small percentage of the city Amazon vehicles are the Rivian vans, but out in the suburbs they are still using normal delivery vans.
Crew cab short bed trucks are in fact the modern day replacement for giant full size sedans of yore. I say this with no shame, as the long time owner of a crew cab short bed truck. Now, mine is a 2wd base model, that cost me $22k brand new out the door, back in 2006. I’m still daily driving it to this day, and I love my truck. These trucks are the equivalent of a good multi tool. They aren’t the best at any one job, but no vehicle layout is capable at so many different jobs.
I feel like the vast majority of Rivians have been sold right here to people in Northwest Philadelphia. Aside from seeing the Amazon vans daily the R1T and the R1S are all over the place here
I’m in the Chicago suburbs, and the R1T and the R1S are also all over the place here.
Not so much on the vans though.
Haven’t seen a van yet, but otherwise we have loads of Rivians around here too! The headlights are cute.
I’m surprised the Chevy Bolt isn’t already sold out, and I wonder if more people have assumed it has. I live in one of the biggest per-capita EV markets outside SoCal and the Chevy dealers here were never able to keep more than one or two on the lot, if that, while they were in production.
Best and most disappointing April Fool’s joke from a brand goes to Jeppson’s Malört
Malort! For when you wanna fight your Dad!
Malort! For when you want to unfriend someone in person.
Malort! Those pants ain’t gonna shit themselves!
Malort! The only thing made BETTER by adding Old Style.
Any brand that botches a social media post or april fools prank absolutely deserves it.
I generally hate April Fools Day. The jokes are never good, but they’re never bad in such a way to make even a decent dad joke, and usually companies will joke about making things people actually would buy.
That being said I love the companies that actually make the “joke” products.
While I generally think brands doing April Fools jokes are dumb and cringe, anyone who actually believed the ID3 thing for a minute deserves the disappointment they got.
The only thing more consistent than Germans making unreliable cars is Germans lacking a sense of humor.
No one who speaks German could be evil.
Insert “I understand that reference!” meme here.
As I’ve heard, Germans take their humor very seriously; it’s no laughing matter.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e5/eb/80/e5eb80668e9b0725215db7baca505da4.jpg
What a coincidence that you are talking about Gordon Chevy in Garden City, MI. I asked them about it when my Chevy Blazer lease was almost done, I specifically mentioned the EV tax credit done at point of sale so I could use that plus the equity of the Blazer as down payment. They said no, claim the EV Credit on your taxes.
I sold the Blazer to another dealer and bought a 2004 Jaguar X-Type AWD Manual transmission, Green with Tan interior lol. Perfect spec for a Jaguar with Ford parts that are easy to find.
For a brief moment, I was hoping that the whole Chat GPT integration thing was the early April Fool’s prank. Oh well.