On a recent trip to Paris, we needed to get from the City of Lights to Museum of Popular Culture about 30 minutes away. Scrolling through the transportation options, we discovered a Budget hack The city location offers a Lynk & Co Co 01 plug and play crossover. We don’t write much about Lynk & Co anymore, I forgot about them until I kept seeing the plump, well-proportioned Co 1 running around Paris.
The story behind: Geely completed its acquisition of Volvo in 2010, then founded Lynk & Co in 2017 to fill the MSRP gap in China between Volvo and Geely-branded vehicles. Lynk & Co has used similar names to Polestar, with Coin 01, Coin 02, Co 03 sharing concept has become a difference and broken records Concept Co 03And Coin 05 reported in the press, then disappeared from the automotive news cycle. The automaker currently only offers the Co 01 in Europe. In its home market, there are the 01, 02, 03, 05, 06, 07, 08, and 09 models. Another similarity to Polestar, the lineup was not launched in numerical order, so it’s unclear what type of car or size each number represents without clicking around the site. We hope Polestar doesn’t do this..
We’ve been hearing about Chinese automakers expanding into Western markets for more than a decade. That surge has begun to take off with tram in Europe, Financial Times reported earlier this year — before the tariff situation escalated — that Chinese brands could accounts for 25% of Europe’s electric vehicle market in 2024. However, recent questions about tariffs remain unanswered, and to be honest, neither does the question of electric vehicles in the near future, so be prepared for surprises coming from all directions.
The Lynk & Co Co1 PHEV avoids the political noise by being a hybrid. It avoids all the other noise by being as innocuous as it is pleasant to use in the city. We call it the automotive equivalent of a brown leather belt; hardly anyone notices it—not even the wearer—but if they do, the belt is good enough, it blends in with its surroundings, and it does its job with ease. Former Lynk & Co European head Alain Visser put it more succinctly when he told a reviewerIn the words of the reviewer, “the company’s products are aimed at the 15 to 20 percent of European drivers who are completely unconcerned with such frills as performance, horsepower, and handling. They just want a car that can get them from place to place in comfort and safety.” Mission accomplished.
Co 01 is on the same platform as XC40 And Pole Star 2. Measuring 178.8 inches long, 73.1 inches wide and 66.7 inches tall on a 107.6-inch wheelbase, it’s four inches longer than our XC40 Hybrid but two inches narrower, with a 1.5-inch taller hood and an inch longer wheelbase.
A decent amount of power comes from a turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine that produces 178 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque, assisted by an electric motor that produces 81 horsepower and 118 lb-ft. The Lynk offers a total of 257 horsepower and 313 lb-ft, all of which are sent to the front wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. With the help of a 17.6 kWh lithium-ion battery (14.1 kWh usable), the Co 01 can travel about 54 miles on the WLTP cycle on pure electric power alone. With a full 11-gallon fuel tank, driving range can reach as far as 500 kilometers (310 miles).
The Co 01 never felt as powerful as the numbers suggest, taking eight seconds to hit 62 mph. Hyundai Tucson The PHEV is just inches smaller than the Lynk in size and a few pounds behind the Lynk in curb weight at 4,142 pounds. The Hyundai makes 261 horsepower and 258 pound-feet, and many estimate it can hit 60 mph in a range of 7.1 to 7.6 seconds. That’s not much of a departure from the Lynk, but we suspect the Co 01’s power delivery is more nuanced than the specs suggest. The result, however, is sensible, inoffensive acceleration, true to the brand.
Get rid of the awkward angles. The strangest of these is the rearview camera image, which looks like a view through a tissue box. On top of the awkward limitation, the camera’s downward angle prevents the kind of wide view you want when assessing what’s behind you. This isn’t something that simply turning your head forward and paying attention can’t fix, in the way that you have to back up even with the camera. It’s odd to see this kind of clunky implementation on a modern rearview camera, especially when a panoramic view is exactly what you want.
The driver assistance systems could use some improvement. The lane-keeping system pulls the steering wheel when you hold it, then drifts a bit in the lane if you let go. The powertrain transition from internal combustion engine to electric motor is smooth enough, the brake pedal is soft, and the transition from regenerative braking to mechanical braking needs polishing. And when the Co 01’s sensors detect an invisible object and decide to brake hard, the powertrain takes a few seconds to restore full power.
Those nuances aside, the Lynk & Co Co 01 is a respectable workhorse with a mysterious barcode name. The plastics fit well, the fabric arrangement on the seats is comfortable, and a few other design features show intent. The panoramic roof comes with sun visors and the front panel can be opened. The digital clock display is mostly monochrome with a few color accents, all information is presented crisply and brightly. The in-car navigation system is easy to understand, with seamless Android Auto integration. The engine rumble under normal effort won’t bother anyone, nor will the tire noise from 235/45 Bridgestone Turanza rubber on 20-inch wheels. The rear seat is the kind of cozy I expect for my 5’11 frame, with enough head and leg room for me to not mind sitting in the second row on a trip.
Lynk’s unique offerings are a registration service And car sharing. In 2022, the company pushed subscriptions rather than sales, with one person able to sign up for Co 01 for 550 euros ($608) per month with insurance and maintenance are included. The current price is €600 ($664) per month, with 11 months being the maximum term before needing to re-register. Subscribers and owners can also share their cars.Set up a Turo car deal through the Lynk & Co. app. Lynk even covers the borrower’s insurance if the deal is set up through the automaker’s app.
Buyers in our market have not taken those chances. If Lynk sanded down some of the Co 01’s edges and fixed the rearview camera, there is no reason intersection find no buyers here. It just needs to be priced like a hungry newcomer, undercutting models like the $40,775 Hyundai Tucson PHEV, $42,145 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV and $45,085 Genuine Toyota RAV4 enough to make it worth the risk. However, that’s not the exact Lynk model in Europe. The Co 01 starts at €44,500 in France ($49,267), Tucson The PHEV costs 47,200 euros ($52,256), Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross The PHEV costs 42,990 euros ($47,595), Toyota RAV4 PHEV at €50,450 ($55,854 US). More importantly, domestic competitors like Renault Cars The Symbioz E-Tech starts at €34,900 ($38,638), Peugeot car The 3008 PHEV costs 40,390 euros ($44,717).
So we don’t see the Lynk & Co Co 01 in our domestic future. But we had a great time in it, and when we return to Europe we’ll be looking to get another one.
