Public Profile

The Center for Automotive Nomenclature Studies is a research institute housed within the University of Michigan’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, dedicated to the scholarly examination of how vehicles are named, categorized, and defined across regulatory, commercial, and cultural contexts. Founded in 1997 with a modest grant from the Society of Automotive Engineers, the center has since grown into what its faculty describe as “the preeminent academic authority on what things are called and why it matters.”

The center’s work spans the classification disputes that periodically convulse the automotive industry — whether crossovers constitute SUVs, whether certain large sedans qualify as “full-size,” and whether the term “sports car” carries any regulatory meaning. Its researchers have published extensively on the EPA’s vehicle classification system, the cultural semiotics of truck branding, and the legal implications of calling something a “coupe” when it has four doors.

The center is directed by Dr. Raymond Koh, a mechanical engineer and applied linguist who has testified before Congress on three occasions regarding proposed changes to federal vehicle taxonomy. Dr. Koh has described the center’s mission as “ensuring that when someone says ’truck,’ everyone in the room is talking about the same thing,” a goal he acknowledges remains aspirational.

The center publishes the quarterly Journal of Vehicular Taxonomy and maintains the Automotive Nomenclature Database, a comprehensive catalog of every term used to describe a motor vehicle in American English since 1908. The database currently contains over 14,000 entries, including 247 distinct uses of the word “wagon.”

Private Profile

The center exists in the strange academic hinterland where engineering meets linguistics meets cultural studies, and no one in any of those fields is entirely sure the center belongs to them. Its researchers are earnest, meticulous, and accustomed to having their work described as “niche” by colleagues who do not intend it as a compliment. They take nomenclature disputes with absolute seriousness, because in their view, what you call a vehicle determines how you regulate it, insure it, market it, and understand it — and if that isn’t worth studying, nothing is.

The center tends to be consulted by journalists whenever a car company does something strange with product naming, which happens more often than one might expect.

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