Badge engineering

Rebadging, sometimes called badge engineering, is the application of a different brand or trademark (badge, logo or manufacturer's name/marque) to an existing product (e.g., an automobile) and subsequently marketing the variant as a distinct product. Due to the high cost of designing and engineering a new model or establishing a brand (which may take many years to gain acceptance), economies of scale make it less expensive to rebadge a product once or multiple times than to create different models.

The term badge engineering is an ironic misnomer, in that little or no actual engineering takes place.

The term originated with the practice of replacing an automobile's emblems to create an ostensibly new model sold by a different maker. Changes may be confined to swapping badges and emblems, or may encompass minor styling differences, as with cosmetic differences to headlights, tail lights, front and rear fascias and outer body skins. More extreme examples involve differing engines and drivetrains. The term badge engineered does not apply to vehicles that share a common platform architecture but are uniquely designed so that they may look completely different from each other. This is achieved by not sharing visible parts, and maintaining a host of underlying parts specific to their respective applications.

Although platform sharing often involves rebadging, it also often extends much further than that, as an automobile platform may be used with many different applications; for example, using a single platform as the basis for sedan and sport utility vehicle model variations.

Rebadging in the automotive industry can be compared with white-label products in other consumer goods industries, such as consumer electronics and power tools.

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Wikipedia