If this isn't a joke, it actually does make sense. Easier to pronounce in english. Means electric car... the growth category. Why not? "Volkswagen" is big enough that the name just means the company/product. But, it isn't really good brand name for an anglo market. You either can't pronounce it, or the literal connotation makes you a little uncomfortable.
What is the literal connotation?
Voltswagen of America
281–290 of 632 posts
Re: Voltswagen of America
#282Got a Subaru Outback 10 days ago. After I saw this, I told my wife that will probably be the last vehicle we buy that is not at least a plug-in hybrid. We had also test-driven a Toyota Avalon Hybrid, but the Subaru was a much better value and had more vertical trunk space, AWD, and every safety/convenience feature we could imagine getting (and some we weren't even aware of) without buying a $70k+ Lexus/BMW/Mercedes.…
I wish Subaru didn't go all-in on touch for critical controls like climate and radio. It may be the #1 reason I don't look to them for my next vehicle.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
My dad used to joke that if you wanted sneakers that were not made by child labor, your best bet was whichever manufacturer last got into trouble for it because of all the extra scrutiny. That this level of fatalism about immoral acts exists is a failure of society as a whole. I suspect that all of those who got rich either knowingly or being willfully ignorant about emissions cheating walked away completely unpunish…
I always found it odd that Americans have no problem with child labor at home, so long as it’s confined to movies and entertainment. We even have special laws just to make it legal when every other form of child labor is outlawed. It’s absolutely not the same as a sweatshop, but hollywood has a long track record of ruining children’s lives for profit.
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Re: Voltswagen of America
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> better performance than the government allowed My understanding was that this performance came at the expense of more pollution, which is what the gov is regulating?
Different pollution, not necessarily more. Tuning the engine for more fuel efficiency generates more nitrogen oxides (above the legal limit in this case) and less carbon dioxide.
That's a fair nitpick, but my reply to the parent comment still stands - that the regulation was about pollution, and not engine performance.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#285The first model in the Voltswagen line should be called the Eggcorn.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#286Ok this is kinda brilliant. Almost everyone already refers to them as “VW”, which will still be accurate after the name change. So they get the media boost of the brand name change without actually having to suffer any hit from lack of recognition.
BP tried something similar in the early 2000s, but abandoned the new name after their incidents in the following decade:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2020/08/04/bps-n...
Re: Voltswagen of America
#287I previously owned a VW, but swore on my life that I'd never buy another one after the emissions cheating scandal. There are plenty of reasons why a VW likely wont be my next choice, but I'm softening my stance a bit. What they did was absolutely reprehensible, but I later learned that the more accurate story is that they bore the brunt of media attention for something that nearly every auto manufacturer was later fo…
> but it does put them back on par with just about every other auto manufacturer in my mind
I'm not buying this.
Edit: I stand (mostly) corrected:
Re: Voltswagen of America
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well to be honest the cheating was pretty much only done so the cars wouldn't be unbearably slow. And every other european car manufacturer basically did the same. Once the targets become impossible to reach for everyone, you start cheating.
That isn't true. It was done so they didn't have to install NOx cleaning technologies. Modern US based diesels have SCR, and EGR systems that help remove NOx and particulates from the exhaust (or prevent it from forming). However, they add thousands to the cost and complexity.
SCR systems are very expensive in modern VWs as well. Especially to repair. With the additional pressure on the engine because of restrictive exhausts engines also don't last as long. EGR systems on diesels are known to gunk up. VW used SCR systems since 2009 if you didn't know.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Pronunciation doesn't go like that but that is a big discussion for its own thread Honestly it kinda does. I wince every time I hear emoji pronounced like いmoji (where the e rhymes with tea) instead of えmoji (where the e rhymes with meh), or pluralize Japanese nouns (“emojis” “sushis”). That said, this is a me problem. People are going to pronounce words in whatever way makes sense to them, where the emphasis goes,…
>emoji pronounced like いmoji (where the e rhymes with tea) instead of えmoji (where the e rhymes with meh) I understand your pain(and also have very similar pain when English words were put into katakana) but for that example, it does make sense as for native English speakers, my assumption was that the emo- part of the word came from emote. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emote https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Mate, that’s why I stated forthright that this is a me problem and made no bones about it.
The “e” is from 「絵」and “moji” from 「文字」, transliterated as 「えもじ」, “e” + “moji” gets you “picture message”. It was a stroke of luck that it was similar enough to emoticon to neatly fit into our existing lexicon and be understood at a glance by an English speaker, at least the gist of it. A picture message is a little bit different than an emote icon if you think about it because there’s many more pictures which are not emotes per se, but can be used within a message alongside the emoting emoji. :)
Re: Voltswagen of America
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given where they are today would they need to do to cause you to believe they have changed?
If they ran a campaign of donating to environmental protection charities, carbon capture, or some other means of protecting the planet, with a value equal to that of the money of the revenue of their diesel cheating vehicles sales, I would say they have changed. Until then, I still think they are doing what they do for the sake of profit.
They are always doing what they do for the sake of profit, it's just that being profitable is harder when the planet is fucking on fire.[1][2]
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/triple-bottom-line.asp