The Lynk & Co 01 very difficult to describe. Not because it’s not classifiable. It’s a compact crossover, and if you close your eyes and sketch a contemporary crossover, you’ll end up with something very similar to Lynk & Co 01: bloated bodywork, four doors, hatch, black plastic wheel arches on 20-inch wheels that somehow look smaller. A variety of “cute” designs bloomed, such as the reptilian rear headlights set atop the front fenders, the narrow petal-shaped grille, clear taillight lenses, and – on the car. I drove – a rainbow of flat blue trim drunkenly along the roof rails and around two of the wheels’ five propeller spokes. Lynk & Co 01 doesn’t have a nasty look. It is simply anodyne to the point of being harmless. You won’t lose it in the parking lot, but you can completely forget about it and take an Uber home.
In many ways, this is the point of Lynk & Co 01: a useful and practical vehicle for people who are not interested in cars.
This was clear to me even before I spent a week with one. I drove it through cities, valleys and an interconnected archipelago, from the west coast of Sweden – where the company is headquartered – to the Hvaler national park in Norway. When I met Lynk & Co CEO, Alain Visser, before he handed me the keys, he told me that the company’s products are aimed at about 15 to 20% of European drivers, who don’t care at all about superfluidity like performance. , horsepower and handling. They just want a car that can take them from one place to another comfortably and safely.
As I like to say about many things (including my own preeminence in the world of auto journalism), “If you set the bar low enough, you’ll always succeed.” Lynk & Co 01 achieves this important mission, in no small part thanks to its good bones – namely Volvo’s Compact Modular Architecture, which is shared with the Volvo XC40, C40 and Polestar 2. Lynk & Co engine uses an effective 177 hp 1.5 – The lightweight petrol engine pairs with an 80 hp electric motor from the PHEV version of the XC40 sold in Europe and China.
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This setup allows me, my three companions and all of our physical and emotional baggage, to travel round-trip from Gothenburg, Sweden to Skjærhalden, Norway, approximately 325 miles, on a single tank of gas. only.
It also gave me the opportunity to try out the charging infrastructure in Norway, the country with the highest percentage of new plug-in electric vehicle sales in the world (recently topping 90% of total new car sales). . Partly a penance for being one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of oil and natural gas, the Scandinavian nation strongly promotes the sale and support of electric vehicles, so even in a small fishing village a few hours from the population center, I found a row of 16 EV chargers behind the town hall. And after some nasty failures with my ChargePoint RFID card, some adventures with Google Translate, the assistance of a quiet local, and some twirling it while filling out the registration page with Norwegian on my phone, I tried to get 01 charge. I am truly a citizen of the world.
In addition to creating a good, comfortable, safe vehicle, Lynk & Co’s big idea is users won’t actually buy 01 – they would subscribe it for an all-inclusive fee of 550 Euros per month (including return, insurance and maintenance), without any long-term commitments. If a customer keeps the car for a year, the company will exchange it for a brand new car. If the subscriber opts out after a month, they simply return the car and that’s it.
At any point during the month-to-month rental period, subscribers can lend their car to someone via the Lynk & Co app, setting their own hourly, daily, weekly or monthly rates. Like an AirBnB for cars, if every AirBnB was a room in Radisson’s courtyard.
Although the number 01 car I borrowed for a few days was stored in a parking lot while my group adventured to a remote Norwegian island accessible only by ferry, I didn’t experiment with it. the rental of the car, although it is very attractive and simple. Just tap a button that says “Share my car” on the infotainment screen – a beautiful landscape layout with CarPlay built-in that, unlike vertical iterations, doesn’t have CarPlay in Volvo and Polestar models – and prepare to fulfill requests from other models people who don’t care about cars.
Based on Share My Car’s map view, there are many such people in Norway. Lynk & Co believes this cohort is growing worldwide. My guess is, the company is not wrong.
