Volkswagen says statement on name change to Voltswagen was April Fool joke

Volkswagen of America has issued false statements this week saying it would change its brand name to "Voltswagen," to stress its commitment to electric vehicles, only to reverse course and admit that the supposed name change was a joke.

Mark Gillies, a company spokesman, confirmed on Tuesday that the statement had been a pre-April Fool's Day joke after having insisted on Monday that the release was legitimate and the name change accurate. 

The company's false statement was distributed again on Tuesday, saying the brand-name change reflected a shift to more battery-electric vehicles.

Volkswagen's intentionally fake news release, highly unusual for a major public company, coincides with its efforts to repair its image as it tries to recover from a 2015 scandal in which it cheated on government emissions tests and allowed diesel-powered vehicles to illegally pollute the air.

READ MORE: VW to be known as 'Voltswagen' as part of electric shift in US

'Market gone crazy'

The company's fake news release, leaked on Monday and then repeated in a mass e-mail to reporters on Tuesday, resulted in articles about the name change in multiple media outlets.

The fake release could land Volkswagen in trouble with US securities regulators because its stock price rose nearly 5 percent on Tuesday, the day the bogus statement was officially issued. 

Investors of late have been responding positively to news of companies increasing electric vehicle production, swelling the value of shares of Tesla as well as of some EV startups.

James Cox, who teaches corporate and securities law at Duke University, said the Securities and Exchange Commission should take action to deal with such misinformation, which can distort stock prices.

“The whole market has gone crazy,” Cox said. “We need to throw a pretty clear line in the sand, I believe, about what is permissible and what isn’t permissible.”

READ MORE: VW to pay $15bn in US emissions scandal

'Really a strange move'

Late on Tuesday, VW issued a statement confirming that it won't be changing its brand name to "Voltswagen."

“The renaming was designed to be an announcement in the spirit of April Fool's Day,” the company said.

Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University, said April Fool’s jokes are common in marketing. But he said it's rare for a company to deliberately mislead reporters.

“The problem is that in the short run, you can fool people, and it seems cute and entertaining," Calkins said. 

"But in the long run, you really do need positive and good relations with the media. For a company that already has credibility problems, this is really a strange move.”

Calkins said that while the incident might not hurt VW with consumers, the company needs good relations with reporters to build its brand image over time.

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