#Everything you should know about marketing EVs

Good examples of all-new electric cars are the Nissan Leaf battery-electric and the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, which both debuted in 2010 as 2011 models. The pioneering Leaf has served as Nissan’s designated electric model and is now joined by the new Ariya crossover, a larger, more stylish crossover, but similarly a stand-alone new model.

The Chevrolet Volt was a purpose-built plug-in hybrid, with an electric motor driving the car and a small gas engine that charged the small battery when it was depleted. GM, shifting focus to pure EVs, built the last Volt on February 19, 2019.

GM’s signature EV now is the Chevrolet Bolt EV, another new name, which arrived as a 2017 model and promptly won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award. This summer, it will be joined by the Bolt EUV variant. More EVs are coming from GM next year with the all-new Cadillac Lyric, a flagship crossover, and a second all-new model.

Just in! Subaru, a brand that offers just one electrified version of a current model—the plug-in hybrid Crosstrek, announced a future model—the all-electric Solterra developed with Toyota.

Create a sub-brand

Before EVs and hybrids, Toyota created what’s become a very well-known and important brand—Lexus. They did it because they wanted to sell luxury sedans, and in America, people thought of Toyotas as inexpensive, reliable small cars. Lexus did the trick. Toyota tried this approach at the other end—with small, inexpensive Scion cars, but it was less successful. It also toyed with the idea of presenting Prius as a sub-brand at the point it had four different models, but dropped it.

Another branding exercise is Geo. In 1989, GM was selling small cars with a variety of origins, including the slightly revised Toyota Corollas (branded as the Chevrolet Nova) that were assembled in a joint Toyota-GM plant in Fremont, California (now home to Tesla). Geo renamed the Nova as the Geo Prizm and added other models jointly produced with Isuzu and Suzuki in North America and Japan, but separated them from its “American” cars. The brand lasted eight years, but never really established itself in the market.

During this same time GM created Saturn, a totally new brand, which arrived in 1990 with its own showrooms, advertising and vehicles. Some people (by design) probably never knew it was a GM brand. Brilliant advertising, ordinary vehicles and lack of corporate support and fresh product killed the brand, but it taught GM a lot. For our discussion, Saturn dealers were the delivery and service point for GM’s aborted first electric car, the EV1.

Perhaps the first electric-only sub-brand was BMW’s i series, which included the i3 hatchback and i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe. I’ve always believed that BMW did this to separate the odd-looking i3 from its “ultimate driving machines” in the showroom and on the road, but today, finally, there are more all-electric models coming from BMW, including the soon-to-arrive i4, which looks and performs more like a traditional BMW.

Other sub-brands include VW’s ID series. The ID3 is a Golf-sized e-Golf replacement that’s sold in Europe and elsewhere, where the Golf is king. America doesn’t get the ID3, but has just received its first member of the ID sub-brand, the ID4 compact crossover. Next up will be the IDBuzz electric minivan. German companies like sub-brands. Mercedes is starting to roll out its EQ line and Audi already offers is expanding its E-Tron lineup.

Sometimes an EV is introduced as a model but is then converted into a sub-brand. Hyundai brought out the Ioniq hatchback a few years ago in hybrid, plug-in hybrid and full electric versions. This year Hyundai is expanding Ioniq into an electric sub-brand with multiple models. These will still be sold in Hyundai showrooms, but as part of a designated EV family. This is much the same way as they made the Hyundai Genesis into the Genesis brand a few years ago.

Honda has the Clarity models, initially a fuel cell electric that was expanded to include a plug-in hybrid, full-electric as well as the fuel cell electric in its second generation. Then Honda dropped the full-electric Clarity at the end of 2019, so the company’s branding strategy is not clear, but it has announced at least two new electric models (co-produced by GM’s expanded EV operation) will be added in the coming years without indicating if they would join the Clarity brand.

And then there’s Polestar, the electric performance brand established in 2017 by Volvo and its Chinese owner, Geely Holding. Polestar was a performance version of selected Volvo vehicles. By breaking it out now as a standalone brand and selling it online and through exclusive “spaces,” they are promoting exclusivity while creating a high-tech customer experience (like Tesla).

Create a new EV company

Tesla is the poster child for this option, and so far, it’s working. But starting from scratch is very difficult and expensive, and the company, despite dominating the American EV market, is still not really profitable from its auto sales alone. But Tesla is the opposite of Harley-Davidson—there are no fossil-fuel-powered Teslas and have never been any–so there is nothing to split from.

There are other new American EV companies. Rivian will be delivering all-electric pickups and SUVs very soon. Lucid has beautiful, roomy luxury electric cars with long ranges coming in the near future. You can order the compelling Fisker Ocean crossover online now, although delivery isn’t until the end of next year.

And what about Zero, the electric motorcycle company? With no history to hold them back, they began developing battery-powered two-wheelers in 2006 and have never looked back.

Is there a right way?

For many, if not most people, cars and motorcycles are more than appliances for getting from point A to Point B. They’ll never be marketed like refrigerators or water heaters. Each manufacturer has to decide which way works for them. Moving to an all-electric future brings great challenges and equally great opportunities.

With electric Ford Mustangs and GMC Hummers and a bunch of fresh brands we’ve never seen before, we are in an exciting new world of personal transportation. And if it works out right, someday EVs will simply be known as “cars” or “motorcycles.”

---

Do EVs excite your electrons? Do ebikes get your wheels spinning? Do self-driving cars get you all charged up? 

Then you need the weekly SHIFT newsletter in your life. Click here to sign up.