The Future Of Car Brands: Scooters

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

If you exist outside the fast-paced world of the automotive branding community, you might believe that the point of car brands is to sell cars. Needless to say, you’d be wrong. The big buzzword around car brands, particularly the more niche and eco-friendly brands is “mobility.” As in “we must leverage our brand values to provide a broad-based mobility strategy for the cities of the future.” Or, to put it into layman’s terms, “screw cars, we gotta start building scooters.”

We’d heard that Smart was headed in this direction, and given that Mercedes is moving into its traditional brand space with ever-smaller, cheaper FWD cars, we reckoned scooters were as logical a direction for the brand as any other. But MINI? Granted, BMW is cannibalizing its small car sub-brand with as much abandon as Mercedes, but MINIs are cars. Not Chinese Vespa knock-offs with MINI branding. If this trend isn’t nipped on the bud quick-smart, the Aston Martin Cygnet is going to end up being the most prophetic car of the decade. [via Autocar]




Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Dimwit Dimwit on Sep 10, 2010

    One of the best branding ads I've ever seen was Honda's with all their products being used by a couple. Very impressive and I've always wondered why they are almost the only manufacturer that seems to extend their brand to logical ends, no patio furniture, no mortgages!

  • Stingray Stingray on Sep 10, 2010

    Peugeot also manufactures scooters. This mobility thing reminds me the "change" of oil companies to energy companies.

  • Formula m Same as Ford, withholding billions in development because they want to rearrange the furniture.
  • EV-Guy I would care more about the Detroit downtown core. Who else would possibly be able to occupy this space? GM bought this complex - correct? If they can't fill it, how do they find tenants that can? Is the plan to just tear it down and sell to developers?
  • EBFlex Demand is so high for EVs they are having to lay people off. Layoffs are the ultimate sign of an rapidly expanding market.
  • Thomas I thought about buying an EV, but the more I learned about them, the less I wanted one. Maybe I'll reconsider in 5 or 10 years if technology improves. I don't think EVs are good enough yet for my use case. Pricing and infrastructure needs to improve too.
  • Thomas My quattro Audi came with summer tires from the factory. I'd never put anything but summer tires on it because of the incredible performance. All seasons are a compromise tire and I'm not a compromise kind of guy.
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