Identifying New Car Emblems Is Hard and Tesla's Badge Is Among the Least Memorable Ones

One of the latest insignia redesigns came from Porsche. The Stuttgart-based automaker updated the look of its iconic crest a little over two months ago after a three-year-long effort. The iconic shield-like badge readded the name of the company's headquarters above the horse with its forelimbs in the air, cleaned the surfaces on which the antlers and the PORSCHE lettering are found, and added black strips to the red stripes.

The design remains heavily inspired by the Wurttemberg-Hohenzollern coat of arms. Despite including a horse somewhat similar to the one present on the Ferrari logo, their story couldn't be more different. The Italian automaker was inspired by the mom of a famous First World War Italian Air Force pilot, while Porsche's stallion is taken from the abovementioned coat of arms. Enzo Ferrari met with Baracca's mother – Countess Paolina – who advised the entrepreneur to add the prancing horse on the brand's racing cars as a totem of good luck.

But nobody expects all gearheads to know all these intricate details and the fabulous stories hiding behind them. Moreover, it gets harder and harder to spot any fundamental differences between new and old designs. Kia is the only exception to the rule. Its new logo makes unaware people search for "KN car" instead of the South Korean automaker's real name.

For example, Nissan, Ford, Honda, and Tesla have made such subtle changes to their logos that people cannot identify which is the correct one in use today. That's according to Vanarama research that surveyed 1,000 British people. They were supplied with three options for each brand; only 24% of the respondents could pick the correct Nissan badge. The other two options were slightly modified to give those surveyed a real challenge.

Around 320 people were able to recognize Ford's logo, about 330 picked the proper Honda emblem, while approximately 340 respondents correctly chose Tesla's insignia. Those numbers tell us that there is a lot of room for improvement. But they also reveal that people may not be so keen on keeping up with the smallest details when recognizing a small design that should automatically link the product it's on to a company.

Conversely, the auto brands with the most recognizable logos are BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Hyundai.

Half of those surveyed chose the right Bimmer emblem, while around 400 Brits figured out Mercedes-Benz's logo in use today. Toyota and Hyundai were both at under 40%.

BMW being among the most easily recognizable ones is surprising because the Bavarian brand played around a lot with its logo last year. It had three designs running at the same time - the iconic black circle with white and blue quadrants, the M anniversay badge, and the minimalist emblem "for a digital world" that remained in use only online.

Interestingly, logo recognition doesn't impact sales or customer interest. Another recent research covering the world's most powerful 50 countries showed that the Honda Civic was the most searched-for car last year but was in 26th place sales-wise. Meanwhile, the Toyota RAV4 was the best-selling vehicle in the researched countries but came only 10th when online searching was considered.

Another good example is that Tesla's Model 3 was the 10th best-selling vehicle in the nations included in the analysis but ranked sixth on the list of online searches. The EVs bigger brother, the Model Y, was fifth in sales but occupied the 11th spot in the same query.