German carmakers show full e-mobility commitment

In a concerted rebranding campaign, the three German premium vehicle manufacturers Audi, BMW and Mercedes want to adapt their labelling to the electric mobility of the future. The brand-new designs are exclusively available to our industry service electrive so far. Happy April Fools! 

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As is well known, the three manufacturers mentioned have comprehensive electric car programmes in the making and now want to make the new course visually visible. In addition, they agreed upon doing so in concerted action.

The initiative goes back to a secret meeting in the Federal Ministry of Transport during which Minister Andreas Scheuer is said to have announced the renaming of the building. As electrive has learned from well-informed circles, Scheuer now wants to call his authority the Federal Ministry for Electric Transport and Digital Infrastructure from 2020. “We have understood that the future of the German car industry lies in electric mobility. We want to take this into account with the new name,” Transport Minister Scheuer is said to have said in the round.

As a result, Audi, BMW and Mercedes have agreed to underpin their electric mobility commitments with new logos from 2020 as well. This is also intended to make the envisioned leading position of the German automotive industry in the field of electric mobility clearly visible. For the three manufacturers, the details are as follows:

At Audi, the definite aim is to make the diesel scandal forgotten by a visual approach to the environment. For this reason, the four seasons will be depicted within the four rings in future. According to Audi CEO Bram Schot, this is to illustrate the company’s attachment to nature in addition to the Vorsprung durch Technik slogan. Here is the first draft of the new Audi logo:

The Bavarian competitor BMW is planning to go one step further. It will change not only its logo but also its name, according to our inside sources. In future, the manufacturer will be known as Bayerische Elektromotoren Werke (for e-drives) and will have a battery symbol in its logo. “The era of the internal combustion engine is drawing to a close, which is why we have to react boldly,” CEO Harald Krüger is quoted as saying. Otherwise, Tesla will drive away in the end, as Krüger fears.

And then there is Mercedes that is to rewrite history. The star established as a brand identity in the year 1926 will turn into a wind turbine from 2020. The wind is “a symbol of strength and dynamism,” according to Dieter Zetsche, current CEO of Mercedes, was cited as saying. The new logo could look like this.

The detailed work of the marketing agencies involved is still ongoing, which is why the final logo designs are to be unveiled only at the IAA in September – again together with the Federal Minister of Economics Andreas Scheuer. VDA President Bernd Mattes suggests that the fair should ban all cars with combustion engines from the Frankfurt exhibition halls, at least on the press days. However, it is still unclear whether the three premium manufacturers will adopt this measure.