Worst Car Names of 2021

Looking back on last year’s cars and some of the not-so-great naming.

We love learning about new cars, here at Motor-Vision. Each year brings us a colourful assortment of cars in all shapes and sizes.

From new supercars and hypercars such as the Maserati MC20, Lotus Evija and 911 GT3 RS to other interesting new entries like the BMW iX and a new Mercedes S Class, there were plenty of new cars that were released in 2021.

While each of these motors has its own charm, whether it be in jaw-dropping performance, great value and affordability or supreme comfort and luxury, some were let down by one particular characteristic. Its name.

With cars having been around for over 100 years, maybe all the good names have already been taken. Nowadays, it would seem that some manufacturers have just given up when it comes to giving their new cars an interesting name and resorted to using meaningless words, random numbers and dashes and dots.

Toyota RAV4 Plug-in

The RAV4 name has been around since the mid 90s when the first generation of this compact SUV first became available to buy. They’re cute, capable and stylish in their own special way. Now, we argue that Toyota could have gone with a less “does what it says on the tin” approach when naming the new plug-in variant, especially when the name RAV4 is meaningful, functional and short and snappy.

Standing for “recreational active vehicle” along with a “4” that marks its 4-wheel drive capabilities, you would think that they would come up with a shortened codename for plug-in too. Instead, they simply slapped “Plug-in” on the end of the name.

Mustang Mach-e

Firstly, believe me when I say people were not happy with Ford using the historic and legendary Mustang name to sell an SUV. It is perhaps the quickest way to dilute the impact of a brand name that has previously stood for an iconic silhouette representing American pony car beauty and grace.

Secondly, what on earth is Mach-e? The Mustang Mach 1 made sense. Mach 1 represents a velocity equivalent to the speed of sound, which makes for a very cool name for a car. Mach-e, however, is a cheap accentuation on the fact that the car is electric. “E” for “electric” may make sense in some car names but does it work here? Not really.

Suzuki Across

Suzuki across what? Is Suzuki now a verb? Does one Suzuki across to a destination? It’s like they realised that all the good names for SUVs with “cross” in it were already taken so they settled with this.

The name’s not great but it’s better than something random and even more meaningless. Speaking of…

Nissan e-NV200

Lastly, although not a car, the Nissan e-NV200 has been done dirty. Is this a car or a fridge? It’s hard to tell when it has a name that looks like an SKU code. Perhaps the guys and gals over at Nissan think it’s acceptable because the e-NV200 is a van but we would argue even a commercial vehicle deserves a little better than some random numbers and letters.

Nissan has other vans with cool and memorable names such as Townstar, Primastar and Interstar so why does the electric one sound like it’s come from a parts catalogue?

Let us know if there are any car names that make you scratch your head, in the comments.

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