Thales, Edison, Siemens, Hertz, Westinghouse, Thomson, Ferraris, Maxwell, Bell were already taken. They needed to go into first names now I guess :)

Heaviside would've been decent, especially for a truck and ATV company.

Heaviside would be a very negative connotation for trucks and ATVs. Most people would think heavy-side or top-heavy, which is the opposite of what you want a truck to be, and not Heaviside the engineer who lent his name to the punniest function in mathematics.

Or they might think heavy-industry or heavy-duty, which would be a good/neutral connotation.

...and heavy has stopped looking like a real word now.

Semantic satiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation

Interesting page! It links to what is now my new favorite wiki page name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...

You might also like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_... then.

Heavy in relation to trucks is usually linked with "heavy duty" which is a good thing. Many truck manufacturers use "heavy duty" in their branding.

Heavi might work if it isn't already a TM.

At glance I read' Heaveside', and it seemed like a good name for an emetic.

"Topsy" is taken (by Apple, of all things) but "Topsy the elephant" might be available.

Topsy was an analytics service that Apple bought and then shuttered - http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023048548045792344...

How about Steinmetz[1]? Is that being used for anything?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz

GE might have an interest in Mr. Steinmetz's name. Still, not as derivative as using Tesla's name.

Hmm... I wonder if there's any legal principle by which GE would have any legal claim to a trademark based on the word Steinmetz. A quick USPTO search only turns up 3 Steinmetz related trademarks and none appear to be associated with GE. One is a lawyer who's last name is Steinmetz. The others are random stuff. shrug

Or, they could come up with a unique name. lol I don't understand why the trendy thing is naming things poorly.

We just had this popup here the other day with the "Hydrogen" project which the guy used without research and it turned out that it was already used by someone else. Could've named these After himself or anything.

What happened to trying to come up with clever unique names?

How about Bowie Motor Company?[1]

Turns out bowiemotors.com is already taken[2].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_6SQKuTHk

[2]: Yes, I tried to register it ;)

(EDIT: Foot-note formatting)

Funfact: Edison developed electric trucks

Heisenberg

I 'm not sure uncertainty is something you want to attribute to a car.

How about Pauli. Principled and exclusive.

Anything quantum is weird and smells of dead cat. Let's stick to sparkles and metal.

I loved this comment so much that I almost wrote about loving it in another dimension.

Big over the road trucks are all about energy. How about Carnot Watt Joule Gibbs Boltzmann

Eisenhower pushed through the interstate highway system.

How about Curie or Lovelace

Hopper would be better IMO.

Digital jewelry ?

And evidently Faraday is taken by Faraday Future automotive company.

Ohm?

It makes me feel like it's a Chinese knockoff of Tesla.

Yeah! I thought this was a subsidiary or some other project that was secret until now related to Tesla until I couldn't find any mention of it on the website.

I agree, the naming seems really unfortunate. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla argues trademark infringement.

Tesla is dead, he died on January 7th, 1948.

They are referring to Tesla the car company. Not Nikola Tesla the person.

Sure, lawyers can argue anything.

But Musk isn't a Tesla family member or anything, right? Morally speaking, what gives Musk the right to use Tesla's name as an homage, but somehow this other guy doesn't have the same right? If Musk can call his company Tesla, somebody else using the name Nikola should be fair game.

It's probably not the wisest naming choice in the long run, but hey, people are already talking about it, so in a sense it's something that will get them some attention.

Moral theorizing is irrelevant. Trademark law is the only relevant factor here.

The legal question under US trademark law is whether a reasonable consumer is likely to be confused by the name and erroneously infer that some sort of relationship or endorsement exists between the two companies.

As Tesla is a rather obscure figure among the general public, my personal view is that average consumers will not be confused and the Nikola Motors name does not infringe Tesla Motors' trademark. However, that is far from clear-cut would be subject to endless dispute in court, probably with both sides producing survey and focus group results promoting their interpretation.

They should name it Musk Motors.

Genius.

That sounds a bit far fetched to me.

If consumers can be confused, Tesla can win. I don't think it's far-fetched for Tesla to be able to prove that consumers can be confused by the name.

Everyone on HN was, no doubt. I figured it was a Tesla offshoot formed to target new segments.

I doubt than more than 1% of the people know the first name of Tesla.

That feels a bit low, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's under 10%.

I don't know if I would even consider his last name a household name at this point. HN is generally not a good indicator of the majority.

That was my first thought too.

it's a deliberate attempt to smear Tesla by associating it with another company that fails /conspiracy

I don't think that truck is ever seeing the light of day; the name and the rest of it all seems incredibly unlikely to materialize except as some money in someone's pockets.

you could say the same about elon musk, as the original inventor was called nikola tesla and they both ripped off the same thing also, there was an electronics company called tesla in communist czecoslovakia, which is realatively well known in central/eastern europe.

Like, "Tesla" is an original name?