8 ms·
They could have tried a little harder with the name. It makes me take them less seriously with a copycat name like they're not confident enough in their product
by eumoria 10y ago
They could have tried a little harder with the name. It makes me take them less seriously with a copycat name like they're not confident enough in their product and need to glom onto Tesla's success. What an awful decision.
The truck looks neat, though.
- tcoppi 10y agoI agree, the naming seems really unfortunate. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla argues trademark infringement.
- bungle 10y agoTesla is dead, he died on January 7th, 1948.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- wil421 10y agoThey are referring to Tesla the car company. Not Nikola Tesla the person.
- fla 10y agoThat sounds a bit far fetched to me.
- smt88 10y agoIf consumers can be confused, Tesla can win. I don't think it's far-fetched for Tesla to be able to prove that consumers can be confused by the name.
- throwaway420 10y agoSure, lawyers can argue anything. But Musk isn't a Tesla family member or anything, right? Morally speaking, what gives Musk the right to use Tesla's name as an homage, but somehow this other guy doesn't have the same right? If Musk can call his company Tesla, somebody else using the name Nikola should be fair game. It's probably not the wisest naming choice in the long run, but hey, people are already talking about it, so in a sense it's something that will get them some attention.
- wityak 10y agoThey should name it Musk Motors.
- coolspot 10y agoGenius.
- pjlegato 10y agoMoral theorizing is irrelevant. Trademark law is the only relevant factor here. The legal question under US trademark law is whether a reasonable consumer is likely to be confused by the name and erroneously infer that some sort of relationship or endorsement exists between the two companies. As Tesla is a rather obscure figure among the general public, my personal view is that average consumers will not be confused and the Nikola Motors name does not infringe Tesla Motors' trademark. However, that is far from clear-cut would be subject to endless dispute in court, probably with both sides producing survey and focus group results promoting their interpretation.
- speps 10y agoThales, Edison, Siemens, Hertz, Westinghouse, Thomson, Ferraris, Maxwell, Bell were already taken. They needed to go into first names now I guess :)
- thevibesman 10y agoHow about Bowie Motor Company?[1] Turns out bowiemotors.com is already taken[2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_6SQKuTHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_6SQKuTHk [2]: Yes, I tried to register it ;) (EDIT: Foot-note formatting)
- falloutx 10y agoHeisenberg
- return0 10y agoI 'm not sure uncertainty is something you want to attribute to a car.
- 10y ago
- Aelinsaar 10y agoI don't think that truck is ever seeing the light of day; the name and the rest of it all seems incredibly unlikely to materialize except as some money in someone's pockets.
- waylandsmithers 10y agoYeah! I thought this was a subsidiary or some other project that was secret until now related to Tesla until I couldn't find any mention of it on the website.
- TrevorJ 10y agoThat was my first thought too.
- zodPod 10y agoIt makes me feel like it's a Chinese knockoff of Tesla.
- misnome 10y agoLike, "Tesla" is an original name?
- fhgksjfgh 10y agoit's a deliberate attempt to smear Tesla by associating it with another company that fails /conspiracy
- llcoolv 10y agoyou could say the same about elon musk, as the original inventor was called nikola tesla and they both ripped off the same thing also, there was an electronics company called tesla in communist czecoslovakia, which is realatively well known in central/eastern europe.