Quick Shifts

Each week I bring you the top stories in the auto industry along with my commentary or sometimes amusing thoughts about the craziness that goes on in the world of cars.   

Stories you’ll find today:

• bZ4-What? The Electric Naming Schemes That Short-Circuited
• Gone in Ten Business Days: NYC’s Fast & Spurious Towing Policy! 
• Nashville’s 24 MPH Speed Limit: Because 25 Was Just Too Obvious
• Escalade IQ: Now Boarding All Rows! 

bZ4-What? The Electric Naming Schemes That Short-Circuited.  Welcome to the electric vehicle naming graveyard, where once-promising branding strategies come to rest—quietly buried under layers of marketing regret, consumer confusion, and the occasional copyright lawyer's cease-and-desist. As EVs continue their march toward the mainstream, automakers are realizing that maybe, just maybe, slapping random letters, numbers, and punctuation onto a badge doesn’t exactly scream “buy me.” And so begins our stroll through this corporate cemetery of forgotten electric dreams. Let’s start with Toyota, who boldly ventured into electrification with its cryptically named “bZ” series. Meant to stand for “Beyond Zero,” the badge sounded more like a generic energy drink or a prescription allergy medication than a family SUV. The bZ4X, the flagship of the line, left people wondering: was it a car, a calculator, or a rejected Terminator model? Turns out, Toyota noticed the branding wasn’t quite resonating with Earthlings. Now they’re reportedly ditching the bZ alphabet soup and folding future EVs into their regular lineup, with names people can actually remember—like Camry and Highlander. Rest in peace, bZ. You were beyond... something.  Next up is Volkswagen, who threw their creative lot in with the “ID” series. This started out simple enough with the ID.4, then got quirkier with the ID. Buzz, and somehow ended up a tangled mess of dots, decimals, and brand inconsistency. One day it was “ID.3,” the next it was “ID Buzz” without a dot—depending on what mood the marketing department was in or whether someone sneezed on the keyboard. VW, bless their autobahn-loving hearts, have now admitted the “ID” branding might’ve run its course. The plan is to resurrect familiar names like Golf and Tiguan for future EVs. Apparently, nothing says futuristic like going back to the past. Then there’s Mercedes-Benz, who went all in on “EQ” as their EV sub-brand. You had EQS, EQE, EQB—it was like Wheel of Fortune for car names. The “EQ” label stood for “Electric Intelligence,” though in practice it mostly stood for “Extremely Questionable.” Mercedes recently announced it’s sunsetting the standalone EQ brand in favor of reabsorbing electric models into the main lineup. The newly-named “G580 with EQ Technology” is a prime example of this rebranding gymnastics. Because if there's one thing consumers crave, it's seven-word model names with legal disclaimers built in. Goodbye, EQ. You sounded smart, but never quite made the honor roll. Over at Audi, the situation might have been the most German of all—precise, logical, and absolutely baffling. Audi introduced a numbering scheme where odd numbers meant gas-powered cars, and even numbers meant EVs. It worked in theory. In practice, nobody remembered which A-number was which. Was the A4 electric? Or the A6? Wait, was there an A5.5? Consumers had enough to remember with passwords, social security numbers, and five different streaming service logins. Audi soon realized its numeric nobility wasn’t cutting through the static and abandoned the plan like a half-charged concept car. The common thread here? Automakers learned the hard way that clever naming doesn’t matter if no one knows what you're selling. All the “bZs,” “EQs,” “IDs,” and even-number/odd-number strategies in the world don’t mean much when customers show up at dealerships asking if the "electric one" comes in blue. So now, like 1980s fashion or the promise of flying cars, many EV naming schemes have been tossed into history’s recycling bin—hopefully to return someday in a more sensible, less syllable-heavy form. In the end, maybe the future of EV naming isn't in abstract acronyms or algorithm-generated gibberish, but in simplicity. Call it what it is. Call it a Camry. Call it a Golf. Just please, for the love of clean energy, don’t call it the bZ4X Platinum XLE Ultra-Zero Edition with EQ-iD Tech+ 9000, and don’t call an SUV a Mustang.

Gone in Ten Business Days: NYC’s Fast & Spurious Towing Policy!  New York City—home of Broadway, bagels, and now, your car’s surprise career as an auction item. In a plot twist only a bureaucrat could love, NYC has a rule that allows the city to tow your car and then sell it just 10 business days later. Not 10 days after they call you. Not 10 days after a letter arrives. Nope—10 business days from the moment a tow truck driver yoinks your ride off the street. That’s your countdown. And if you blink, your car’s headed to a new life with someone who outbid a used mattress for it. Let’s break this down in true NYC fashion: fast, expensive, and with just a touch of “how is this even legal?” Imagine you’re out of town, your registration’s expired by 30 seconds, and someone reports it. The NYPD swoops in, your car gets towed, and the clock starts ticking. You come back a couple weeks later, head to where your car was, and find—nothing. Just tire tracks and a $400 hole in your soul. But wait—it gets worse. To get your car back, you’ll owe at least $370 for the tow (more if it was a “difficult” tow, whatever that means), $20 per day in storage fees, and possibly another $185 if they slapped a boot on it first. Let’s say you’ve been out of town for two weeks: that’s $370 + $280 in storage + $185 for the boot = a solid $835 bill waiting for you. Oh, and if your inspection or registration is expired, you'll also have to fix that before they let you drive it away—so you might need a tow to get your towed car out of the impound. It’s like an M.C. Escher painting, but sadder and more expensive. The city insists it tries to notify owners, but let’s be honest—how many people are checking their mail when they’re out of town or, say, living in the 21st century where all communication happens via phone or smoke signal? And even if you do get the letter in time, it may not contain enough info to save your car before it’s up for grabs at the next municipal auction-palooza. Cars are being sold off for pennies on the dollar, often to auto shops and resellers who’ve memorized the impound calendar better than their anniversary dates. So, what’s a New Yorker to do? Apparently, maintain psychic awareness of your vehicle’s legal status at all times, hire a pigeon to monitor your street, and maybe invest in a GPS tracker for when your ride makes its great escape to the pound. In NYC, you don’t just park and pray for no ticket—you now park and pray it’s still yours tomorrow. Or at least not starring in a Craigslist ad that says “One-owner Altima, runs great, thanks NYC.”

Nashville’s 24 MPH Speed Limit: Because 25 Was Just Too Obvious.  If you’re the kind of person who gets mildly infuriated when your TV volume isn’t on a multiple of five, prepare to have your day absolutely wrecked by a road in Nashville. Right outside Opry Mills Mall, drivers are greeted not by your standard-issue “25 MPH” speed limit sign, but by something so mathematically defiant it might cause your cruise control to spiral into an existential crisis: “24 MPH.” That’s right. Twenty. Four. Miles. Per. Hour. This isn’t a typo. It’s not a dare. It’s not a remnant of a decimal-based prank war between civil engineers. It’s a very real, very specific speed limit—and it’s here to keep you on your toes, or more accurately, your foot just slightly off the accelerator. Turns out, the road is private property, which gives its owners carte blanche to slap on whatever arbitrary speed number tickles their oddly specific fancy. They could’ve gone with 23.937 MPH if they wanted to. They could’ve chosen 19.5, 62, or even infinity, but instead, they landed on 24. Probably after a heated debate in a boardroom that ended with someone slamming down a calculator and shouting, “Let’s meet halfway between ‘weird’ and ‘what the hell.’” But there’s method to the mathematical madness. Studies show that when speed limits veer from the expected, people snap out of driving autopilot. Your brain sees “24” and immediately assumes it’s in the Matrix. That extra second of confusion? Congratulations—it just bought you enough reaction time to not flatten a shopping cart that's rolled into your lane like a Walmart tumbleweed. It’s psychological warfare, and it's working. One contributor from The Drive confessed their neighborhood posts a limit of 17 MPH. Seventeen! That’s not a speed, that’s a poorly timed roulette spin. But guess what? People actually follow it. Because if the number’s weird, it must be serious. Nobody sets 17 as a joke. That’s a cry for precision. Now, let’s not pretend this is a Nashville-exclusive quirk. Across America, parking lots, retirement communities, and gated enclaves have been getting creative with their signage. “19 MPH,” “14.5 MPH,” and my personal favorite, “Speed Limit: Reasonable” have all been spotted in the wild. This isn’t traffic regulation—it’s performance art. And honestly, it’s kind of genius. On a road where everyone expects the same vanilla 25, throwing up a rogue “24” is the vehicular equivalent of a plot twist. It says, “We’re not like other roads. We’re the indie coffee shop of speed limits.”  So, the next time you’re near Opry Mills Mall, set your cruise control to an ironically cool 24 MPH. Not 23. Not 25. Hit 24, and vibe with it. Because in a world full of round numbers, Nashville just decided to floor it... ever so slightly less than usual.

Escalade IQ: Now Boarding All Rows!  The 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ is so big it needs its own HOA. This electric land whale isn’t just a vehicle—it’s a mobile estate, and Cadillac knows it, which is why they’ve thoughtfully installed a two-way intercom system so the driver can check in on the third row without investing in flares or a megaphone. Officially dubbed “Conversation Enhancement,” this feature beams voices around the cabin like you're hosting a conference call on wheels. It’s ideal for asking if anyone in the back wants to stop for milk without having to detach your seatbelt, crawl past three rows of captain’s chairs, and risk getting lost somewhere around the second moonroof. At up to 228.5 inches long and riding on 24-inch wheels, this isn’t an SUV—it’s a parade float with headlights. You don’t park it; you dock it. And because navigating a vehicle the size of Delaware requires more than just turn signals, the Escalade IQ comes with a 55-inch curved LED dashboard screen and more camera angles than a football broadcast. Inside, the luxury goes beyond overkill and proudly into “opulent spaceship” territory, with up to 42 speakers from AKG that can deliver concert-quality audio to each passenger—or at least help drown out the sound of children arguing six rows back. But don’t let the square footage fool you—this mansion moves. With up to 750 horsepower and the ability to sprint from 0 to 60 in less than five seconds, the Escalade IQ is essentially a rocket-powered Ritz-Carlton. Sure, it weighs enough to have its own gravitational pull, but thanks to GM’s Ultium platform, it still dances like a much smaller—okay, slightly smaller—SUV. And for those wondering about range, Cadillac claims around 450 miles, though that’s probably cut in half if you use the intercom to order pizza from the third row and it shows up in the cargo hold. At the end of the day, the Escalade IQ is proof that in America, bigger is still better, and louder is still luxury. It’s a rolling tech palace that lets you feel important enough to need an internal communication system just to ask your passengers if they touched the thermostat.