When you’re a brand as big as the famous German manufacturer Audi, you have to be extremely careful with the names you give to your cars. A brand with a global outreach has to factor in for global languages as well and make detailed decisions on what to name its cars.
However, Audi didn’t do their homework correctly and ended up making the biggest mistake in the book. While the German manufacturers were excited for the launch of their latest electric modeled car, the world couldn’t help but silently laugh at the name they had chosen for it. Francophones all around the world couldn’t stop themselves from giggling as Audi rather proudly pointed out the name for their new model; e-tron.
The name for the model is extremely similar to a word in the French language, pronounced as ‘etron.’ The word, rather funnily, is used to describe a turd or an excretion in the French language. While Audi had played their part in hyping up the model, the world couldn’t take them seriously with the jokes going around on Twitter.
Social media users immediately identified the mistake and were quick to pull jokes at Audi for missing such an important flaw. One Twitter user went as far as to say that no one in Audi speaks French, considering the poor standards they had displayed while naming their new vehicle. Another Twitter user pulled a new twist to the debate, saying this car was the most expensive pile of turdon wheels.
Audi, however, maintained a low profile on the drama and haven’t yet issued an apology or any statement on the matter at hand.
As funny and unique as this matter is, it isn’t the first time any global car manufacturer has found itself in hot water when it comes to poor naming conventions.
Just recently, Toyota had to change the name for MR2 to MR in countries where French was spoken. The name was changed because MR2 would literally translate to ‘em-er-deux’in French, which is close to the word ‘merde’meaning ‘shit’in the language.
Honda also faced a similar issue with their Fitta model back in 2001. All promotions had to be stopped after it was pointed out that ‘fitta’ meant ‘cunt’ in the Swedish language.
These instances just go to prove how careful you need to be while naming a car with a global reach.