Do you remember The Simpsons episode “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield”? It first aired in February 1996, and it’s the one where Homer and Bart go to Appliance Zone and are confronted with “genuine” Panaphonics, Sorny, and Magnetbox TVs. Well, it seems a similar brand name-game has been going on at a Volvo dealership in China.
News started filtering out of China last week about an owner of a Volvo S60 sedan who realized the speakers in his car were not from Bowers and Wilkins, as they were supposed to be. Instead, the speakers were branded Bowers and VVilkins, substituting a pair of Vs for the W. We’ve seen that “typosquatting” approach in malicious emails plenty of times, but it’s a first in a Volvo.
That wasn’t the only phony part in the customer’s S60. He also realized that the crystal transmission knob wasn’t entirely right either and lacked the genuine article’s backlighting.
Source : https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/02/chinese-volvo-customers-report-fake-bw-speakers-in-their-cars/
