Ignoring a group of new car companies that come with a large amount of online traffic, the new brand Lynk & Co, which is backed by Geely and Volvo, may be the most anticipated car brand.
Due to the relationship between Geely and Volvo, while Lynk & Co is in the new car camp, it does not belong to the new car forces.
No matter how the industry changes, for car manufacturers, ultimately, you need to convince consumers to buy/use your products/services. If we evaluate Lynk & Co from the perspective of judging new car companies, is it a good brand?
Design
As a bulk consumer product, the design of motor vehicles is critical at all times. After all, some people will veto a car because “it’s too ugly”.
Everyone has seen the two cars that were released last night. Regarding the overall tone, for a part of the population, it may never be able to accept Lynk & Co’s design language. People around me have different attitudes towards Lynk & Co’s design. Controversial, differentiated, avant-garde, and stylish, this is the label of Lynk & Co’s design. (In fact, this is the label of the whole Lynk & Co brand, and it will be discussed later.)
Lynk & Co 01 PHEV and 02 have used highly similar family design languages. By stretching, flattening, and widening 01, it becomes a coupe-style 02.
However, you can also find that whether it is the 01 or 02, the young and bold designs on the grille, front bumper, side skirts, and wheel styles, as well as the bright car paint and interior color matching, have become standard. From a design perspective, Lynk & Co’s brand building is successful. It constantly sends a signal to you: This is not any other new car company, this is Lynk & Co.
Performance
Young people have simple and rough requirements for performance: fast response, arriving when called. When talking about performance, it is inevitable to talk about the powertrain, and also to talk about Volvo behind the curtain.
Lynk & Co 01 and 02 are both based on the CMA architecture jointly developed by Geely and Volvo. The CMA architecture was developed by the Geely Automobile European Research and Development Center (CEVT) with a research team of more than 2000 people, and took more than 3 years to develop. Needless to say, there must be Volvo’s technical accumulation in this.
In addition to the basic platform structure, the 2.0T version of the 02 model uses Volvo’s Drive-E series powertrain. In addition, Volvo and Geely have jointly developed a 3-cylinder engine for the 1.5T model, a version of 1.5T with 179 horsepower, and a 7DCT wet dual-clutch automatic transmission for the 2.0T version.## Electrification
Speaking of powertrains, electrification cannot be ignored, especially for a new generation brand.
At the recent Beijing Auto Show, Lynk & Co unveiled a new energy strategy. At present, PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) and HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) are important pillars of Lynk & Co’s new energy strategy. Pure electric models will come later.
Speaking of this, we have to talk about the CMA architecture. The CMA architecture is characterized by high flexibility, adjustability, and high compatibility. It is an extremely forward-looking infrastructure that is fully compatible with pure electric, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, mild hybrid, and traditional fuel powertrains.
When Lynk & Co 02 debuted globally in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Geely Auto Group CEO An Conghui said that the new energy versions of 01 and 02 will be launched successively, but the pure electric and fuel versions will be launched simultaneously starting from 03. So, you cannot say that Lynk & Co is not thorough enough in electrification. It has launched appropriate products at the right time.
Not all car companies are as extreme as Tesla, whose extremity stems from having no burden of the fossil fuel era. Even leaving the burden aside, NIO’s battery swapping, Enovate’s extended range, and Xpeng’s “the number of supercharging stations will surpass Tesla next year” are all essentially measures taken to improve the electric vehicle user experience.
However, Lynk & Co (or Geely Volvo) has already accumulated a wealth of experience in fuel powertrains. In fact, Lynk & Co’s pure electric product planning is still part of Geely’s “group army operations system”, and Lynk & Co will develop pure electric models based on the PMA architecture – another modular basic architecture jointly developed by Geely and Volvo, just like the CMA architecture.
Geely and Volvo are also very aggressive in their attitude towards electrification: Geely’s “Blue Geely Action” plan calls for 90% of Geely’s sales to be new energy vehicles by 2020; Volvo announced last year that it will stop selling gasoline cars from 2019 onwards. Imagine that.
Intelligence
In the future competition in the automotive industry, electrification is important, but intelligence is the core. For Lynk & Co, since it is targeting young consumers, intelligent configuration has to be piled up.
Intelligence is divided into two parts: in-car eco-intelligence and autonomous driving.
First, let’s talk about entertainment. Lynk & Co 01 and 02 are equipped with 10.25-inch full LCD instrument panels and 10-inch central touch screens as standard across the range. In terms of size specifications alone, although they perform better than rival products from joint ventures, they are still inferior to many new car companies, which should cost it some points.The software system is an extra point, and the three most crucial points are: account system, OTA with HMI (Human-Machine Interface), and cloud service. These three points ensure that the infotainment screen of Lynk & Co and the highly praised AliOS-powered Internet-of-Vehicles are capable of delivering a growing, continuously improving user experience.
Support for other localized services (such as Amap car version and iFlytek speech recognition technology) including functions like voice navigation, music and air conditioning control, remote vehicle tracking, and smart parking payment are all seamlessly integrated.
In terms of automated driving, Lynk & Co is equipped with Volvo’s active safety genes: 17 intelligent driving features come standard, including adaptive cruise control that supports three seconds of idle restart and automatic emergency braking that recognizes pedestrians taller than 80cm. Of course, there is a clear problem: no OTA updates. This is a basic capability for new automakers like NIO, Chehejia, and XPeng.
Lynk & Co 02 has well-endowed hardware for active safety. For example, the intelligent-assisted braking system of Bosch iBooster and the ESP 9.3 high dynamic version of the body stability control system. These configurations can’t be bought with money alone, demonstrating the value of CMA architecture.
The CMA architecture supports dual communication channel design, and the maximum communication speed of the FlexRay bus is 10Mbps, whereas the traditional CAN bus communication speed ranges from 125K to 1M. In fact, the main application of FlexRay is digital engine control, ABS, suspension control, and wire-controlled steering. In short, the communication channel design of the CMA architecture provides enough space for Lynk & Co’s future intelligent driving, assisted driving, and whole-vehicle OTA implementation.
Safety
“All models are developed to meet the global five-star safety standards of C-NCAP, E-NCAP, and IIHS.” Volvo’s genes, nothing more to say.
Brand
Finally, it’s the part that I want to talk about the most.
The design, performance, intelligence, and electrification mentioned above are tactics, not strategies. What is brand strategy? Suppose you start a new automobile company. Do you want to be China’s BBA (Benz, BMW, Audi), Toyota, or Ford?
It is not about copying these once highly successful automakers in terms of styling; it is about the level of influence and height that these new automakers can attain in the Chinese automobile industry someday and who their benchmarks are.
Lynk & Co wants to tell the whole world: Lynk & Co isn’t benchmarking any successful automakers or any other new automakers. Lynk & Co is Lynk & Co.
The Lynk & Co press conference was like this:
The elements of traditional car launch events, such as dazzling lighting and a wide range of drinks, have been significantly weakened. The whole venue feels more like a Hip-Hop or street dance Bettle scene. It’s hard to imagine that Geely Auto Group President and CEO, An Conghui, and a group of Zhangjiakou municipal leaders are sitting in the audience at this moment.
In fact, to take care of the leaders’ experience, Lynk & Co has made some concessions: At the global debut of Lynk & Co 02 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in March, more than 90% of the people did not have seats arranged in order to create a more purely open Party atmosphere.
Following the launch event, An Conghui explained the rationale behind the experience:
Just now, you all attended the launch event of the Lynk & Co 02, and you may have felt that it was different. I don’t know if you all have observed it carefully, and it may not be too suitable for the media present here. To be honest, I am also a little unaccustomed to this way of doing things, but I must accept the reality. Because this kind of event format is what Lynk & Co’s consumers agree with and like, it is an event that everyone can accept and have a good experience.
This is what Lynk & Co’s official website looks like:
Lynk & Co’s offline connection with users, the Lynk & Co Center, recently upgraded to a 6S service mode, injecting the Social and Share concepts. Here’s an official introduction:
Social represents the Lynk & Co Center becoming a “third place” for consumers outside of their offices and homes. Here, Lynk & Co not only provides traditional services such as car buying and after-sales, but can also become a social place for users to hold birthday parties and gatherings with friends.
Share is an extension of the Lynk & Co brand’s “sharing” spirit. Lynk & Co cars have the technological ability to share, allowing Lynk & Co owners to share their cars with family, friends, and others who have Lynk & Co accounts and digital keys. These different accounts can switch and use different system backgrounds, page layouts, and other personalized settings. At the same time, consumers can also participate in Lynk & Co Club activities to earn points and redeem premium accessories, such as car roof racks, children’s safety seats, and winter tires through points.
As a new brand incubated by traditional car manufacturers, Lynk & Co makes full use of the advantages of design, research and development, and manufacturing systems from Geely and Volvo. At the same time, as a new generation brand, it has learned how to operate users from Internet companies that put users at the center.
Perhaps it is precisely because of so many resources and positioning advantages that give Lynk & Co the confidence to be the first “car trend brand” in the industry. What’s more intriguing is that from the sales/pre-sale data of 01 and 02, Lynk & Co’s controversial brand strategy is winning the market.
Whether for consumers or the automotive industry, the appearance of Lynk & Co is full of fun.
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This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.