Another disruptive electric vehicle brand may be on Australian roads by 2025, with the Chinese-owned Lynk & Co likely to focus on younger buyers and new purchasing models, such as subscriptions.
Recent documents released by Geely, the Chinese carmaker that also owns Volvo Car Group, as well as its all-electric offshoot Polestar and EV upstart Zeekr, point to the new development as part of its Smart Geely 2025 strategy.
“Geely sales goals are not limited to China – by 2025, the Group aims to achieve exceed 600,000 in overseas sales,” the company said.
“The Geely Auto brand will focus on developing the Eastern Europe, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America markets as well as introducing new energy products to EU and Asia-Pacific markets.
“Lynk & Co will expand its global presence by entering Russia, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand among others,” it wrote.
Lynk & Co has five models available in China, in both battery-electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and mild hybrid (MHEV) versions.
They are numbered from o1 to 09 (there’s no 04, 07 or 08 currently), starting with the 01 compact SUV, then a 02 hatchback, a 03 sedan, 05 coupe (available as either a BEV or PHEV), and 06 small crossover (also available in either BEV or PHEV).
The 09 large SUV is available in both PHEV and MHEV drivetrain, but not BEV.
Lynk & Co already has a presence  in Europe, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden, and is entering markets with what it calls “Clubs” (Polestar is doing it with “Spaces”).  See image above.
This is essentially a showroom with a cool hipster atmosphere, that in some includes a rarified room that sets a vehicle apart from sipping crowds (if indeed there are crowds) as if a museum piece, or a dancer in a cage at a nightclub.
This is a brand that aims to capture the new generation of drivers, with a new attitude to car ownership.
In Europe, its 01 compact SUV in PHEV and HEV format will available to buy outright or use with a month-to-month subscription, anticipating the move away from private car ownership that is being anticipated on many fronts, particularly in the autonomous arena.
Outright pricing in Europe doesn’t yet appear to be available (or at least is not transparent on the company’s English-speaking website) but a €500 membership fee gets a driver 1,250km of driving per month, with an extra 15 cents per kilometer driven after that.
Whether a similar business model will be employed in Australia is yet to be seen: although Polestar had touted a subscription ownership model that would include maintenance, registration and the like, it has since said – for Australia at least – that “the mechanism behind (subscriptions) is extremely complicated.”
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.