The secret of naming luxury car brands

Combining letters and numbers together to form a complex string of characters is a deliberate marketing method of car manufacturers.

“Customers may be attracted by complicated names. But how much they perceive its quality is another matter,” said Lopo Rego, Associate Professor of Marketing at Indiana University (USA), about the impact of “names” on human psychology.

BMW is considered one of the most complicated car manufacturers in naming its products. In the 1980s, the company sold the 3, 5, 6 and 7 series. Until now, they still exist. Even added the 1 series, 2 series, 4 series for sedans and hatchbacks. Use the letter X for sports utility vehicles. In addition, the letter i for electric or hybrid vehicles.

But what does it mean for the X5 xDrive40e iPerformance?

X5 xDrive40e iPerformance, BMW's long and confusing name for many.

“X” indicates that this is a utility vehicle, “5” indicates that the size is similar to the 5-series sedan. “xDrive” refers to BMW’s four-wheel drive system, “40e” is the name of the plug-in hybrid powertrain. While “iPerformance” is the name of the high-performance hybrid engine used in the car.

At BMW, there is a department dedicated to answering customers’ questions about difficult product-related issues. Helping them fully “understand” their car.

“We can spend two hours or more with a customer just consulting with them,” said Jonathan Griffin, a BMW employee. “Often they bypass the dealership and just ask us for information. Then we come back to the topic of buying.”

Recently, some luxury car manufacturers have adjusted the naming of their product lines. The change comes from two factors, helping customers distinguish more clearly and the purpose of expanding the company's product line in the market.

Mercedes-Benz uses the letter G to refer to its SUV line.

At the end of 2014, Mercedes officially announced a new naming scheme. Instead of hard-to-remember names like GLK, ML, GL…, the symbol G is used to indicate a multi-purpose vehicle line, developed according to the platform of the corresponding model. For example, the A-Class hatchback has the SUV GLA, the C-Class has the GLC or the E-Class has the SUV GLE…

Meanwhile, brands like Acura, Infiniti, Lincoln, Audi… have similar naming methods that combine letters and numbers. This similarity has given rise to copyright disputes over names between car manufacturers.

Take Audi for example. It took a lot of time and effort in negotiations to officially use Q2 and Q4 to synchronize its product line. Two names that were previously registered by Fiat-Chrysler.

For Cadillac, the CT6 replaces the previous XTS full-size sedan. Like some other automakers, Cadillac also uses the letter X to indicate a multi-purpose vehicle. For example, the 2017 Cadillac XT5 replaces the SRX SUV. The smaller XT3 is also in development. The full-size SUV called the Escalade is an exception that will not change.

Infinity, Nissan’s luxury car brand, has used many different letter names such as E, F, G, I, J or M. But 2 years ago, the symbol “Q” was used again after the first time in 1989, when the Infinity brand introduced the first model Q45 in the US. Currently, Infinity uses Q and QX to distinguish between the two lines of sedans and SUVs. Behind the letters are numbers but do not describe the exact engine capacity or fuel tank size.

According to VNE