Why rebadging cars confuses people

Some prospective vehicle owners will look at a Nissan Elgrand (E50) and Isuzu Fargo Filly and won’t be able to tell the difference but may think of the Isuzu as fake! Or you may see a Suzuki Escudo but the label is screaming Mazda Proceed. It sounds confusing, welcome to the world of rebadging. Jude Katende tells you why.

Rebadging is an issue that a big number of Ugandan car enthusiasts are yet to understand. I have come across some misleading articles branding such vehicles as fake, really? For a vehicle to be fake, it would mean it is either very bad or cannot perform as required. For the un-initiated, rebadging refers to sharing of vehicle badges or call them labels or signs. The labels or signs are different but the vehicle remains the same right from the engine to the entire body and size.

Why it is done
Different markets (read consumers or countries) have different tastes and preferences including not wanting some brands. A market may not want Toyota vehicles but that same market may buy Lexus vehicles sharing a platform or design language with Toyota, the parent company. That said, rebadging should not be confused with selling a luxury brand alongside a non-luxury brand but from the same company, it is a bit confusing.

As Motorcare (Nissan agents in Uganda), managing director, Chris Ndala explains, “Rebadging helps in cutting costs as two companies can share the same engine on two different vehicles among other parts.” He adds that people should not confuse rebadging with luxury segments.

“Infiniti is a luxury segment. Infiniti can compete with Mercedes Benz but Nissan cannot because it is in a different non-luxury segment,” Ndala argues. He notes that the Renault-Nissan alliance was meant to reduce costs. “I can use the same engine for both cars. The Nissan NP200 pick-up has a Renault engine. Rebadging is also about market penetration,” Ndala further explains. Some manufacturers without a presence of their car brands in some countries use rebadging as a way to penetrate those markets.

Luxury segment background
This is a big segment but for the readers, let us limit it to some of the most popular brands, those that most Ugandan car fans can identify with. Mercedes Benz, Audi and BMW, all from Germany, are globally known as rivals in the luxury segment. They raised the bar so high for many years to the extent that other car brands had to work hard and smart to join this famous trio. To cut the long story short, Japan’s Honda, Toyota and Nissan went back to the drawing board and were able to join the German trio’s “table of men.” They came up with Acura, Lexus and Infiniti respectively.

Anyone in the car business will tell you how hard it is to penetrate the ever stringent North American market, but the Japanese trio successfully did. Mazda, another Japanese firm tried to join her sisters but for some reason, rethought this decision and gave up. Now that the Japanese can compete with the Germans in the luxury segment, they have since taken the battle to include not just their primary target, the executive passenger (saloon and station wagons), but also compact cars, hatchbacks and SUVs among other segments.

That said, judging from comments on some car websites, some car fans in the western world have often accused the Japanese of selling Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans expensively as rebadged Acuras, Lexuses and Infinitis respectively. Because of this accusation, these days, you will find an Acura that does not share a platform or look like a Honda. The same can be said of Lexuses that do not look like Toyotas and Infinitis that do not look like Nissans. And not to confuse fellow Japanese, the luxury vehicles are meant for export and not sold in the Japanese domestic market.

Rebadging
With that background, now we can look at rebadging. How different is rebadging from the luxury segment? Totally different! First, most of the vehicles that are rebadged are not in the luxury segment. They include
pick-ups, commercial vans, station wagons, hatchbacks, saloons/sedans among others. Like earlier explained, most companies swap car badges/labels and maintain the rest of the vehicle to cut costs and also penetrate other markets.

Then is also the issue of an individual swapping their Volkswagen badge with that of Mercedes Benz. Though unthinkable, individuals cannot be stopped from granting themselves their own wishes. Gilbert Wavamunno, a sales director at Spear Motors, authorized Mercedes Benz agents says: “Rear boot lid badges can be removed or added. We supply all our vehicles with the appropriate model badges but customer can remove them if they so wish. We know some people add badges to ‘pretend’ that their vehicle is another, usually more powerful, model but when we plug in our diagnostics unit we will always get the correct data off the vehicle or from the chassis number when also entered in to our manufacturer computer systems.”

However, what confuses most car fans about rebadging and the luxury segment was the Japanese trio’s initial selling of their less pried cars as expensive luxury brands than being sold as independent brands. So if a cheap or affordable Toyota Harrier is sold as an expensive Lexus in America or Europe, it surely will annoy buyers. That is why this list of some rebadged examples will include Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus and Nissan Infiniti.

SOME REBADGED VEHICLES

Model name and rebadged name(s)
*Honda Accord sold as Isuzu Aska in Japan
*Mercedes-Benz Sprinter sold as Dodge Sprinter in United States and Canada
*Nissan Safari also called Nissan Patrol sold as Infiniti QX56 in North America
*Opel Zafira sold as Subaru Traviq in Japan also as Chevrolet Zafira in South America
*Renault Trafic sold as Nissan Primastar in Europe also as Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro in Europe
*Mazda Tribute sold as Ford Escape in United States, Canada, Japan, Australia
*Suzuki Vitara sold as Mazda Proceed Levante in Japan
*Toyota Windom sold as Lexus ES in North America