Treasure named Model E

Author: Chang Yan

From novels to movies, and even from philosophy to history, we all know that there are some treasures that are always heard of but not seen.

And once these treasures cross the boundary of legend and appear in reality, it becomes a historical turning point of either grudges initiation or resolution.

In the electric car empire battle, the name Model E is a legendary treasure.

Ford’s Model Dynasty

Ford once changed the world with a single car.

On October 1st, 1908, a car named Model T was delivered from Ford’s famous Highland Park factory. Its most significant feature was the use of moving assembly lines to manufacture cars. The mass production method made cars extremely affordable and greatly accelerated the production speed.

Model T accomplished two miraculous tasks – making America the center of the world’s automotive industry and accelerating the entry of cars into every family.

By the early 1920s, more than half of the registered cars in the world were Ford cars, and during its production cycle of less than 20 years, 15 million vehicles were produced. This record was not broken until 1972, and even 40 years later in 2012, Model T still holds the eighth place on the global automotive sales list.

Ironically, the over-success of Model T made people overlook Henry Ford’s original product concept. In fact, the Ford automotive empire began with Model A, in alphabetical order.

Before Model T, Ford’s most successful model was called Model N, and guess what, Model S was actually Model T’s precursor. Does it sound familiar?

Until the Model T ceased production in 1927, Ford officially released the Model A to inherit its legacy. Since then, Ford has successively owned Model A, B, C, F, and K.

Interestingly, the associative word Model E is easy to find in English but has never been included in Ford’s car sequence. When the fourth industrial revolution came with the rapid onslaught of the internet and electrification, Ford’s product naming had undergone enormous changes and therefore did not use the Model E.

However, Ford did register the trademark Model E. The reason was simple. Ford implemented an employee electronic support system within the company-called Model E-used to distribute computers to all employees.

Henry Ford once said, “Trying to surpass Ford is futile because there will always be another car ahead.”

Musk’s Secret Plan

Exactly a century later, another person appeared in the United States who wanted to change the world with cars.

Looking back, many of Elon Musk’s “out-of-the-box” practices were already implemented by Henry Ford.

For example, Tesla placed high importance on improving production processes and methods from the beginning, just like the reason for Model T’s success.

In addition, Tesla has very limited color choices for its models, and even fewer configuration options. This extreme cost-reduction path was practised by Ford’s Model T. In fact, from 1914 to 1925, Model T only provided black.

Even Tesla’s current practice of not advertising, originated from Ford’s clever move. Due to the Model T’s excessive sales, Ford did not advertise for the car from 1917 to 1923.

If Henry Ford “put the world on wheels”, then Elon Musk is definitely the one who wants to “electrify those wheels”.

You can even find Musk’s “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” article on Tesla China’s official website, dated August 3, 2006, and the official even added the playful words “We know what you know” after the title.

According to Musk’s plan, almost all new technologies have high unit costs at first, so one must make money first before launching affordable family cars, and only by doing so can we accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Therefore, according to Musk’s plan, at least in Tesla’s early days, the production of cars would roughly follow these steps:

1. Produce sports cars

2. Produce affordable cars with the money earned

3. Then produce even more affordable cars with the money earned

Tesla’s Sexy Legend

Once again, fate is about to change the world with a new car.

When Musk’s “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” was released, the fourth car of Tesla was already on the internal schedule.

At that time, Tesla already had a expensive and niche Roadster, and was preparing to launch the revolutionary four-door sports sedan Model S to the market, with the same platform as the almost finalized Model X.

And the task of the fourth car was also very direct: to become a popular electric vehicle.

At that time, the car was codenamed Bluestar within Tesla.

In an interview in 2013, Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer, stated that the engineering plan for the vehicle had been determined and that the size of the vehicle would be the same as that of the BMW 3 Series and the Audi A4.

On June 4, 2014, Elon Musk, who was still lean but balding, gave an interview to CNN Money amid doubts about Tesla in the industry. In this popular article that would later go viral, Musk revealed three important pieces of information:

1. He planned to stay at Tesla for another 4-5 years in order to launch an affordable electric car priced at $35,000.
2. Tesla would build a factory to produce batteries in order to reduce costs.

And: “A friend asked me at a party, ‘So what are you going to call the third-generation car?’ and I said…we have the S and the X, so we might as well call it the E,” Musk said.

Marketing genius Musk naturally knew that if the model names of the three cars could form the word “SEX,” it would bring excitement to fans who like to try new things and create a hot topic for gossip-hungry media.

But this fantasy was quickly shattered.

From Sexy to S3xy

Eight years later, we now know about the subsequent releases of Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y, and the S3xy posters are everywhere.

Many people believed that replacing “Sexy” with “S3xy” was like the “beep” sound in videos, representing harmony with inappropriate content, but in reality, this change was a compromise made after a series of helpless situations.

In the same CNN Money article, Musk mentioned that he had just shared his naming fantasy about the word “SEX,” and Ford had called him to warn him that if Tesla used the trademark for Model E, they would be sued.

It was also revealed that the two companies had signed a gentleman’s agreement in 2010, and according to the provisions of the contract, Tesla agreed not to register or use the Model E trademark.Musk’s comment on the matter is both resentful and certain: “Ford killed the idea of SEX, so we won’t call the new car Model E.”

In fact, this is not the first time Ford has warned other companies not to use the name Model E. On August 4, 2008, Ford sued Model E Corp., an online car rental company backed by SoftBank subsidiary, for attempting to ban its use of the name.

Interestingly, this startup is also located in Fremont, California.

Ford has three reasons for being concerned about the name Model E:

1. The pronunciation of Model E is too close to Model T;

2. Ford has a habit of naming its models Model+ letter in the automotive industry and is about to enter the electric vehicle market;

3. Ford does indeed own the trademark for Model E, which is the system I mentioned earlier that is used to provide employees with computers.

But what’s interesting is that sometimes this lawsuit is selectively ignored. For example, on October 18, 2021, Foxconn announced it was making cars and released three models, one called Model E and one called Model T, and everything was fine.

On July 16, 2014, Tesla officially announced on its official Twitter account that the next car would be officially named Model 3.

This was actually another bad idea by Musk. Although it was called Model 3, Tesla did not use Arabic numerals 3, but a stylized three-dash letterform, both at the official Model 3 debut and on Tesla’s official website thereafter.

Not only is this pattern similar to the letter E, but even in Tesla’s logo, this pattern is used to represent the letter E. When S and X are combined, it still has a straightforward meaning of SEX.

However, Americans did not jump out, and Germans did.

In February 2017, Adidas sued Tesla, claiming that the three-stripe logo was extremely similar to Adidas’ three-stripe logo and demanded that Tesla change its logo.

This time, Tesla backed down again.

But Musk was very unhappy and retold the story on Twitter: “Model 3 was supposed to be called Model E, but for obvious, stupid, and humorous reasons, Ford sued to prevent that, so now it’s S3X, which is something completely different.”

Later, Tesla changed all Model 3s on its official website to Arabic numerals 3.

On July 8, 2017, when Musk celebrated the production of the first Model 3, he still proudly highlighted the E represented by the three stripes on the back, and when I participated in the global first test drive of Model 3 that month, the media’s badge still had the three stripes logo.

Ford restarts Model E

Model E has become a gold-lettered signboard that has never had a real car but has a far-reaching reputation in the electric vehicle circle.

And everyone once thought that this name might always be buried and become a tragic story of “I don’t need you, and you won’t get it” forever.

Until 2022, Ford strives to become the leading brand in the field of electric vehicles, similar to Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess, and also uses Tesla’s unique techniques in brand operations.

In fact, most rumors are usually debunked. Just after the New Year, a large number of US financial media outlets, including Bloomberg, reported that Ford is about to split its fuel and electric vehicle divisions. This news has been debunked several times, including by Jim Farley, who stated that this news does not match the actual plan.

However, on March 2, 2022, Ford officially announced that it would accelerate its strategic transformation, split its automotive business divisions, enhance its electric vehicle business, strengthen its operational management, and create more value.

Ford will establish separate fuel and electric vehicle business units, and Ford Blue will become the main body of the fuel vehicle business, while the main body of the electric vehicle business will be named:

Ford Model E.

“Ford Model E will be the core of Ford’s future innovation and business growth. It will bring together the world’s best software, electrification, and automotive talents to create electric vehicles and digital experiences that truly amaze the next generation of consumers.” Jim Farley said.

He also said: “This is an unprecedented development opportunity for the company in business growth and value creation since Mr. Henry Ford implemented the Model T in mass production on an assembly line.”

After the name was announced, Ford’s stock price soared 7% on the same day.

In the history of the automobile, progress is made in a century, and today, the left leg has kicked on the right leg.

Shortly after this announcement was made, the long-suppressed gunpowder smell turned into real gunpowder, and the spitting war between Tesla fans and Ford fans lit up the virtual night sky of the Internet.

Model E is like a battle flag planted on a high ground.Stand up, it’s time to fight.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.