While the Tesla logo beat a fellow luxury vehicle brand like Mercedes in immediate recognition, there are plenty of more memorable car signatures before it. American Trucks surveyed more than 500 people in the US over which car logo they like best, while 90 had to return drawings of the most popular ones.
It turned out that the iconic BMW and Subaru signs still get the most visual recognition, while Tesla is far behind at 9th place in terms of drawing proximity to its actual logo. It was still ahead of Mercedes, though, which was the previous most valuable car brand. Moreover, when the participants had to chose the best car logos, Tesla took 3rd place after BMW and Audi with a 50% preference.
Still, when shown a number of AI-generated images for a Tesla logo, 65% of the respondents liked them better than Tesla's current imagery. This, however, held true for every other car company and their AI-generated logo. The ones with the most recognition like BMW had a higher percentage of people liking the real deal, though, while only Mercedes and Audi had a larger percentage of people preferring the artificially created logo than Tesla.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of respondents by demographics as another recent survey showed that people under 45 are much more likely to consider an EV as their next vehicle. Also, anecdotal evidence shows that a lot of teens now say Tesla when asked about their favorite car brand, rather than the typical Mercedes, BMW, or Italian performance car mentions of yesteryear.
The EPA is preparing to announce a sweeping emission standard changes today that are certain to be a boon for Tesla, as its brand value is now second to none. That same Tesla logo that survey respondents scoffed at when it was compared to its AI reincarnations, has gradually become the most valuable car brand in the world.
According to the newest Brand Finance ranking, Tesla has boosted its brand's worth 5x from before the pandemic. With US$66 billion, it has rocketed past legacy stalwarts like Mercedes with its US$58.8 billion in brand value, or Toyota's US$52.5 billion which now place it third.