GM's diesel for North America: It needs a good name.

[Drew Dowdell]

GM's diesel for North America:

It needs a good name

GM's 2.9 liter V6 Clean Diesel for Europe

September 29th - By Drew Dowdell

On Monday, GM Vice Chairman Tom Stephens said at an energy efficiency conference that GM would release a diesel powered car for sale in the U.S. sometime in the future. Vague words at best, but still it managed to perk the ears of those of us who love torque.

One of the constant problems with diesel power in the U.S. has been how to market it as something "special" compared to an every day gasoline engine. The word "diesel" pulls along as much baggage as the semi-trailers it powers. As the discussion about diesels increases over the next few years (assuming this prediction by the Vice Chairman comes to pass), you will see many references to the ill fated Oldsmobile diesels of the early 80's. However, even people too young to remember those cars, still associate "diesel" with dirty buses and trucks. The only diesel passenger vehicles for sale in the U.S. today are manufactured by the German imports. Chrysler, under the ownership of Mercedes Benz, fielded a few diesel Jeeps, and all 7 people who knew about them bought one. They were never marketed in any meaningful way. My guess is Chrysler simply didn't know how.

Few can argue that Ford hasn't struck gold with their new Ecoboost engines, but the truth behind the Ecoboost engines is rather mundane. The Ecoboost engines are simply very good engines with direct injection and turbo charging. There is nothing technologically ground breaking about them. In fact General Motors even beat them to market, at least in general architecture, with their 2.0T-Direct Injected engine available in the Cobalt SS, HHR SS, Pontiac Solstice GXP, and Saturn Sky Red-Line. The difference with Ford is they've built an impressive brand cache around the term Ecoboost, so much so that even if a customer ends up buying a non-Ecoboost vehicle, it got them to look at a Ford product in the first place. Ford has taken the already good perception of the word "Turbo" and made it even more special, even more desirable, and made it only available at your Ford/Lincoln dealer. Thus, the need for a really good name.

This brings us back to GM's (hopefully) coming diesel powered passenger cars. GM simply cannot slap a "Diesel" badge on the back of it's regular passenger sedans and call it a day. It needs an "Ecoboost" type marketing term to make sure people know that this is not their father's Oldsmobile Diesel. In Europe, the Opels sold with a 2.0 Turbo diesel are simply called Ecotec CDTI. Not good enough for the U.S.. The Ecotec name only has marginal name recognition and adding a bunch of meaningless letters at the end won't help build brand awareness.

I'm probably a bit too old school to come up with a great marketing name for GM's diesels. Everything I think of sounds like it came from a Life Magazine advertisement from 1959, but I'll list them off for you anyway:

TorqueMaster

RangeMaster

EcoThrust

DriveMax

So, I leave it to you dear commenters, help us find a good name for GM's potential diesel push.

[Z-06]

1. DuraMini
2. ECO-VCDi
3. Di-Green
4. Green Dynamics

[NINETY EIGHT REGENCY]

Dura Star

[Drew Dowdell]

Dura Star

Oooo! I like that one!

[hyperv6]

Dura Star

Sounds like a Texaco Gear Lub.

I agree a good name is needed as well as education on the new Diesels. This all needs to be a solid marketing program or it will be a failure.

They need to make people excited and understand what once was true on diesels is no longer true. Also they need to let them know what they can do for them.

Edited September 29, 2010 by hyperv6

[regfootball]

GM's diesel for North America:

It needs a good name

GM's 2.9 liter V6 Clean Diesel for Europe

September 29th - By Drew Dowdell

On Monday, GM Vice Chairman Tom Stephens said at an energy efficiency conference that GM would release a diesel powered car for sale in the U.S. sometime in the future. Vague words at best, but still it managed to perk the ears of those of us who love torque.

One of the constant problems with diesel power in the U.S. has been how to market it as something "special" compared to an every day gasoline engine. The word "diesel" pulls along as much baggage as the semi-trailers it powers. As the discussion about diesels increases over the next few years (assuming this prediction by the Vice Chairman comes to pass), you will see many references to the ill fated Oldsmobile diesels of the early 80's. However, even people too young to remember those cars, still associate "diesel" with dirty buses and trucks. The only diesel passenger vehicles for sale in the U.S. today are manufactured by the German imports. Chrysler, under the ownership of Mercedes Benz, fielded a few diesel Jeeps, and all 7 people who knew about them bought one. They were never marketed in any meaningful way. My guess is Chrysler simply didn't know how.

Few can argue that Ford hasn't struck gold with their new Ecoboost engines, but the truth behind the Ecoboost engines is rather mundane. The Ecoboost engines are simply very good engines with direct injection and turbo charging. There is nothing technologically ground breaking about them. In fact General Motors even beat them to market, at least in general architecture, with their 2.0T-Direct Injected engine available in the Cobalt SS, HHR SS, Pontiac Solstice GXP, and Saturn Sky Red-Line. The difference with Ford is they've built an impressive brand cache around the term Ecoboost, so much so that even if a customer ends up buying a non-Ecoboost vehicle, it got them to look at a Ford product in the first place. Ford has taken the already good perception of the word "Turbo" and made it even more special, even more desirable, and made it only available at your Ford/Lincoln dealer. Thus, the need for a really good name.

This brings us back to GM's (hopefully) coming diesel powered passenger cars. GM simply cannot slap a "Diesel" badge on the back of it's regular passenger sedans and call it a day. It needs an "Ecoboost" type marketing term to make sure people know that this is not their father's Oldsmobile Diesel. In Europe, the Opels sold with a 2.0 Turbo diesel are simply called Ecotec CDTI. Not good enough for the U.S.. The Ecotec name only has marginal name recognition and adding a bunch of meaningless letters at the end won't help build brand awareness.

I'm probably a bit too old school to come up with a great marketing name for GM's diesels. Everything I think of sounds like it came from a Life Magazine advertisement from 1959, but I'll list them off for you anyway:

TorqueMaster

RangeMaster

EcoThrust

DriveMax

So, I leave it to you dear commenters, help us find a good name for GM's potential diesel push.

some of those suggestions are kind of sexual. at least leave the word 'thrust' out of it.

using 'Eco', even though GM used it first, would look like copying EcoBoost. Unless GM simply used "Ecotec-D"

Any use of the word torque would convey semi trucks. GM can't afford that trailer park stigma on expensive cars.

Duramax is too closely tied to GM's own pickups. But the 'Dura' part is intriguing.

COuld you use the term 'vortec-D'?

this one is a stumper, actually.

Torq-star. sorry, it was gonna come up anyways.

Edited September 29, 2010 by regfootball

[Drew Dowdell]

I like the idea of "star" as a suffix in the name... GM has a good rep with Northstar

Ecostar

RangeStar

EfficiStar

[Z-06]

Green Star

[ZL-1]

Why not use Opel's ecoFLEX designation? It is applied to models that suffer some other changes (low resistance tires, etc) but it is a good name.

[Drew Dowdell]

BlueStar (for Europe too)

[SAmadei]

"VIN: Diesel". Oh, wait... I think that was a movie or something. ;-)

I agree that GM using 'Star' would be a nice tie-in... The only name coming to me is "GreenStar". EcoStar or GreenStar would have some competing trademarks/servicemarks. You also run the risk of thinking of Ford... AeroStar, WindStar... but that was a bigger risk for the NorthStar.

However, I somewhat disagree with the stigma of putting "Diesel" on a car... the GM Diesel debacle is 30 years gone.

Diesels will likely be the only thing with a shot in hell of hitting the 60 mpg 2025 rules put down by our oppressive overlords, and therefore we will rejoice at the Diesel name!

[Z-06]

BlueStar (for Europe too)

I resisted from that considering VW and MB use the blues for their diesels.

[Croc]

BlueStar (for Europe too)

That was going to be my suggestion!

[Camino LS6]

Fuelstar

[Camino LS6]

Fine job on the article, by the way.

[balthazar]

>>"Everything I think of sounds like it came from a Life Magazine advertisement from 1959..."<<

Yep- they did.

I have no suggestions, and I didn't like anything suggested above.

[Robert Hall]

Gray Cloud

[gm4life]

This is good news. Pop this in a new "small pickup" (Colorado replacement) and you would really have something. This motor would also be great in a CTS Wagon or juat about any other GM vehicle. It would work will with Enclave/Traverse/Acadia as well.

[67impss]

EconaMizer

EconaMaXX

DuraMizer

Just rambling thoughts

[rkmdogs]

How about--- Powerstar?

or,

Maxi-miser?

[Auntie Rue]

Tru-Smoke

SootStar

[Dsuupr]

1. DuraMini
2. \

I like the "DuraMini", though I don't think it will do much in the marketing department.

The Ecotec brandline needs to be expanded and pushed more. I think it still has good vibes and great marketing potential.

[bopis79]

I think ecostar is a helicopter brand.

Eco D

EcoDiesel

ecomax