Has it ever been easy to come up with a name for a new car model? Automakers have faced this challenge for decades, which has led to memorable moments like Ford asking poet Marianne Moore to suggest vehicle names in 1955. (Honestly, “Ford Pastelogram” has a nice ring to it.) The advent of electric vehicles has added another layer to this — how do you convey that a vehicle is electric without just adding “electric” to its name?
Volkswagen’s answer has involved using the “ID.” preface for its EVs. It’s a relatively elegant solution to this issue but one that’s also led to other problems. Namely, the numbers used for the series of EVs don’t give a sense of what drivers can expect. The ID.4 is an SUV, while the ID.7 is a sedan. So if you expected the model with the higher number to be a larger ride, you’d be mistaken.
Now, Volkswagen seems to have shifted gears in its naming strategy. This week, it announced the new version of the ID.3, which has a slightly modified name: the ID.3 Neo. The automaker looks to be keeping the “ID” naming convention but ditching the numbers, as future Volkswagen EVs will include the ID.Cross and the ID.Polo. And it isn’t hard to see the appeal: There’s something a little more evocative about “Polo” or “Neo” that an unadorned numeral lacks.
The automaker is also referencing some of its existing models with upcoming names. Earlier this year, InsideEVs’ Iulian Dnistran reported that the next generation of the ID.4 — Volkswagen’s electric counterpart to the Tiguan — will be the ID.Tiguan. Seems pretty straightforward and a more elegant name than, say, “Tiguan EV.”
Volkswagen’s electric vehicle sales have been respectable worldwide. Last month, the company announced it had delivered two million fully-electric vehicles to customers around the globe. And while the company’s EV sales in the United States haven’t been bad, they could be better: Car and Driver referred to the ID.4 as having had “a brutal fourth quarter” last year. Perhaps these new names will be the thing to jumpstart its U.S. sales.
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Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal.
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