Published March 30, 2012
By Bertel Schmitt
We'd said it would happen, and sure enough, Daimler and BYD unveiled their joint EV brand Denza today. They literally just unveiled the brand. The cars will be unveiled at the Beijing Motor Show in the last week of April. They should have kept everything covered and hire some professionals.
The brand unveiling took place at BYD’s headquarters in balmy Shenzhen, on the other side of the Hong Kong border. Carnewschina is miffed that they were not invited to the shindig. What should I say, I am in Shenzhen and nobody told me. I am glad I did not go.
Today, the Chinese counterpart of Denza was unveiled: Tengshi.
Further unveiled was a logo. It looks like a drop of something, kind of strange for an EV.
Finally unveiled was a slogan: “EV the Future.”
The Denza Web site is a low-budget affair that looks like it was put together with Microsoft Word at the last minute.
If Daimler and BYD have paid more than $1,000 for logo, slogan and website, then they wasted money.
Message to Daimler: All this is shockingly pedestrian, and an embarrassment. It does not at all reflect the class and refinement that usually goes into Daimler branding. If the car reflects the haphazard branding, then I don’t want to see it.
I guess the car will look like an old B Class anyway.
