What Modern Electric Car Has The Dumbest Name?

Image: General Motors

There’s always been something overly contrived about car names that makes them a frequent and frankly deserved target for mockery, but the industry-wide shift toward electrification has really emboldened marketing departments’ worst impulses.

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Every automaker wants you to know they make an EV; they also want you to believe, with no supporting evidence, that their EVs are special and different, and all of the negative associations you may have with electric cars don’t apply to theirs. It’s for this reason — and the recent announcement of the Escalade IQ — that today we’re posing the question: What’s the worst name in EVs today?

We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge another important factor that has auto execs losing sleep over this branding challenge: Tesla. Everybody’s jealous of Tesla, and that’s spurred rather desperate check-cashing of recognizable names and franchises. That’s how we got the Mustang Mach-E after all, and how we’ll apparently get a family of battery-powered Corvette products. Carmakers are throwing everything at the wall.

“Escalade IQ” is amusing in the way it strains to connect Cadillac’s imagined future with the one aspect of its past that still holds any cache in 2023. But it’s one of so many questionable EV monikers to discuss today. Which is the one that makes you laugh or cry? Tell us in the comments, and be prepared for a roundup of the best responses later this week.