Tesla Goes to China

[kevin99]

I find the new name perfectly acceptable - except that they seem to have registered "拓速乐汽车" which literally means Tesla Gasoline Car. Electric cars are "电动车" so I don't know if this was just wrongly reported by media or for real.

Anyhow, using 拉 instead of 乐 in the new name is probably not very good.

It can easily be extended to become 垃圾 which means garbage or rubbish.

I like the new name - sounds to me like "Building up speed to happiness"

Regarding '拉', a lot of high end imported brands has it. Association to '垃' is a stretch as they are different character.

I guess in the end, the product will define itself, and people will make their own association. I hope they do relate Telsa to "Building up speed to happiness", which I like a lot, better than the “Expand Speed Happiness”.

With a product like Model S, I think people will.

 

[twinklejet]

Regarding '拉', a lot of high end imported brands has it. Association to '垃' is a stretch as they are different character.

It isn't a stretch vocally. What I'm saying is that phonetically, people can rename de si la / tuo su la to become de si la ji / tuo su la ji (vocally) if they want to deride the brand.

I hope they do relate Telsa to "Building up speed to happiness", which I like a lot, better than the “Expand Speed Happiness”.

I'm not sure about your level of mandarin proficiency so I'll just explain anyway...
Expand Speed Happiness is a literal word by word translation which really isn't suitable for translating some mandarin words to english.
For example, 人山人海 would be translated as people mountain people sea (literally), but it actually means crowded.

I was reading the three words together and the first impression I got from it was to build up speed to happiness which actually seems alright for a car company.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Regarding '拉', a lot of high end imported brands has it.

Here's a list of all the brands with '拉' in their Chinese name:
Cadillac - 凯迪拉克Ferrari - 法拉利
Lada - 拉达
Mahindra - 马辛德拉
Maserati - 玛莎拉蒂
Tatra - 太脱拉

Two are truck makers and one is not so good, but the other 3 are high end brands.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/汽車品牌列表

 

[twinklejet]

Here's a list of all the brands with '拉' in their Chinese name:
Cadillac - 凯迪拉克Ferrari - 法拉利
Lada - 拉达
Mahindra - 马辛德拉
Maserati - 玛莎拉蒂
Tatra - 太脱拉

Two are truck makers and one is not so good, but the other 3 are high end brands.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/汽車品牌列表

yes but there is no meaning to that character in those words. It is a placeholder for the phonetics ra and la in cadilLAc , feRAri, LAda, etc.

they count on existing brand awareness which tesla does not have.

the brand has to already be well known for that to work. Its like coming up with a company called mtfyohdjyr , ure going to have to define your brand because nobody has any idea what you are or what you represent theres no meaning associated with a random bunch of letters either.

 

[MikeC]

The car will speak for itself - any linguistic derision can be quickly extinguished with a test drive. If the name doesn't have prestige now, it will gain some once people start driving them.

 

[vfx]

.... Its like coming up with a company called mtfyohdjyr , ure going to have to define your brand because nobody has any idea what you are or what you represent theres no meaning associated with a random bunch of letters either.

Tesla gets that in the states too.

"What kind of car is that?

It's a Tesla.

Who makes it?'

The letters mean nothing. As you say the brand has to be built from scratch.

 

[artsci]

When I'm in China in September Ill be spending time in Beijing, Xinzheng City, and Guangzhou. In many cases I'll be talking to high school students who want to study in the US as well as their parents. I'll do some informal polling to understand if they've even heard of Tesla and if so their level of knowledge. These are pretty affluent families and in most cases can afford the car, so this should be an interesting excercise.

 

[Krugerrand]

And it's been said the English language is complicated. Pfft!

 

[doug]

This is the bit I'd want fixed.

I find the new name perfectly acceptable - except that they seem to have registered "拓速乐汽车" which literally means Tesla Gasoline Car. Electric cars are "电动车" so I don't know if this was just wrongly reported by media or for real.

I guess 汽车 is typically used for car, but that "steam" 汽 character certainly doesn't apply here. Maybe it will stick around like how we "dial" a phone. But Tesla should go ahead and establish themselves as an EV (电动车) brand. Hopefully they can remove that stigma that EVs in China burst into flames.

 

[twinklejet]

This is the bit I'd want fixed.

I guess 汽车 is typically used for car, but that "steam" 汽 character certainly doesn't apply here. Maybe it will stick around like how we "dial" a phone. But Tesla should go ahead and establish themselves as an EV (电动车) brand. Hopefully they can remove that stigma that EVs in China burst into flames.

Have you tried sending an email to George B and Elon about this case? There is a tiny chance they might not have noticed it and might have taken 汽车 to mean car wity gasoline connotation.

 

[kevin99]

Still a mess in these domain:

The shameless domains: The guy probably spent one hour mock up a few pages to trick people he has a team doing something, and is hiring:

http://www.tesla.cn/
http://www.teslamotors.cn/
http://www.teslamotorsclub.cn/

Official one: Tuosule.cn

Model S Design Studio | Tesla Motors

but no Chinese version at all?

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

The shameless domains: The guy probably spent one hour mock up a few pages to trick people he has a team doing something, and is hiring:

http://www.tesla.cn/
广州特斯拉汽车技术有é™å…¬å¸ - ä¸*国特斯拉(TESLA)官网
广州特斯拉汽车技术有é™å…¬å¸ - ä¸*国特斯拉(TESLA)官网

Who's up for a little DDoS attack?! j/k

 

[kevin99]

Who's up for a little DDoS attack?! j/k

The Vbulletin by default try to parse the link, which has Chinese as title.

You were quick to quote me because once I saw it I edit my post to disable the 'Parse the link'.

 

[danahull]

thank you blake! it helps that I am here in Silicon Valley and have covered company since before the IPO. have learned a lot.

 

[aronth5]

Tesla Motors hits trademark detour on road to sales in China


"As a result, the 10-year-old company's first shop-front in China, at the Parkview Green Fangcaodi mall in the capital, sits boarded up. While there is no Tesla sign, the shop is adorned with billboards of the Model S, which was launched in the United States last year.

http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/tesla-motors-hits-trademark-detour-road-sales-china-article-1.1434778

 

[twinklejet]

Um just so everyone knows, this *appears to be* Tesla's official sina weibo account: http://e.weibo.com/teslaofficial

Currently over 14,000 fans...

- - - Updated - - -

And this is the account of the guy in charge over there:
http://www.weibo.com/1867750565/A5OAwFC9s

 

[kevin99]

Who's up for a little DDoS attack?! j/k

Oh I thought you were complaining about the scribble. As for DDoS, perhaps the Red hackers already working on it?

 

[markwj]

Some more info on the Tousule name and arrangements in China:

TESLA renamed as “Tuosuleâ€￾ in China, setting up showroom in Beijing

 

[juan]

What is the status of the Tesla Park view Green store in Beijing? I am expecting it to open any day now.

 

[callmesam]

Tesla forms joint venture with Chinese automaker . . .


Tesla may form JV with local firm - Headlines, features, photo and videos from ecns.cn|china|news|chinanews|ecns|cns