Media gets Jaguar Land Rover’s electrifying announcement wrong (again)
Note to media: all-electric and electrification are not the same thing, writes Mark Smyth
In July, Volvo issued a press release with the headline: "Volvo Cars to go all-electric." Media houses around the world, including in SA, ran with it, declaring the end of the internal combustion engine. The problem was that the headline on the release was simply not true. It was a clever piece of PR manipulation by Volvo to ensure it got the coverage it wanted. Had the reporters who misread the facts actually read the release properly or, as we did, tuned into the company’s online press conference, they would have known that Volvo plans to offer electrification in every new model it launches from 2019. There is a vast difference between electrification and "all-electric". All-electric means no internal combustion engine, just pure electric power, such as the latest generation of the Nissan Leaf which was revealed this week. Electrification means anything from a 48V mild-hybrid system to plug-in hybrid and full electric. Volvo is promising all of these but only in new models it laun...
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