Fully electric Lynk & Co 02 ready to buy or lease, no subscription yet

It’s finally here: the long-awaited fully electric Lynk & Co 02 for Europe. You can buy or lease it for a competitive price compared to its siblings, the Volvo EX30, Smart #1, or the Zeekr X, starting at €35,495. Sharing is natural for a brand that wants to redefine car ownership, but there is no subscription (yet), like for the 01, which made the latter stand out.

With its founder and spiritual father, the Belgian Alain Visser, leaving the company in December, it looks like part of the juvenile dynamics that marked Lynk & Co has gone with him. Watching the rather lukewarm launch event in Milan last week, what you’ll get in the future is more of the same: a car industry focused on selling.

The good news is that ‘more of the same’ means, in this case, bang for your buck at a competitive price of $5,000 lower in Belgium than the Volvo EX30. In its Core version, the latter has a single motor, RWD, a 51 kWh battery, and a 337 km (WLTP) range, retailing at €40,590.

However, until the end of this year, you’ll get a discount in Flanders to match the sub-€40,000 list price requirement for government subsidies of €5,000. This other sibling, on the same SEA platform from motherhouse Geely, the Smart #1 Pure, starts at €33,995. This one is RWD, single-motor, too, and draws 310 km of range out of a 49 kWh battery.

The last to join the SEA club, the Lynk & Co 02, comes in two variants: Core and More. ‘More’ means, in this case, some extra equipment like a 1.6 kW Harman Kardon audio system with 14 speakers, 360° view, and a selfie camera like in the 01, 20″ wheels instead of 19″, a heating steering wheel, and memory function for the electrically adjustable seats. Obviously, this makes it more expensive: 39.495 euros in total.

Both are rear-wheel drive only. The Lynk & Co 02 shares a 272 hp (200 kW) motor with its sister brands but gets a bigger (NMC) battery of 66 kWh, offering ranges of 435 km and 445 km, respectively.

Longer and more space

What else do you get for your money? The Lynk & Co 02 is over 20 centimeters longer than the Smart #1 and the Volvo EX30. To compare, the 02 measures 4,460, 1,845, and 1,573 mm (l/w/h), and has a wheelbase of 2,755 mm, while the EX30 is 4,233, 1,837, and 1,549 mm (l/w/h) and has a wheelbase of 2,650.

The Smart #1, developed by Geely with Mercedes-Benz, is 4,270 mm long. The difference in wheelbase is 100 mm, which usually translates into more interior space. You’ll get more luggage space in the Lynk & Co anyway, with 410 liters compared to 318 of the EX30 and an additional ‘frunk’ in the front of 15 liters.

Inside, you’ll find a stylish yet sober interior, with upholstery made of recycled PET fabric (in the 02 Core) or vegan leather (02 More). The digital cockpit has a customisable 10.2-inch instrument cluster behind the wheel and a 15.4-inch infotainment touchscreen in the middle.

The software comes from global automotive technology provider ECARX, which also supplies the other Geely brands, but also brands like Citroën and Mazda, for instance. One of the nice features differentiating the Lynk & Co 02 from the masses is the ‘Hey Honk’ button.

Friendly honk

This one lets you choose a more friendly way to warn or address people outside of the car, using a playful tune or a voice message rather than just an aggressive horn sound.

It’s cute but not so extremely original, as the Zeekr X already allows you to turn on an external speaker to attract other road users’ attention. You can choose between the sound of a frog or an out-of-breath tractor, or you can even use your voice to say hello if you want to keep it friendly.

What is unique for Lynk & Co is the built-in sharing functionality. Using the brand’s particular app, you can make your car available for others to use at a price you define yourself, with the company taking care of the usual rigmarole like payments, insurance, or checking driver’s licenses.

For the 02, this is made even more user-friendly by adding a ‘sharing strap’ next to the steering wheel you can simply trigger to bring you to the sharing app. As other carmakers have been phasing out their car-sharing programs, Lynk & Co claims that about 30% of 01 owners share their crossovers in Europe and earn some of their money back. So, it remains a ‘unique selling proposition’ (USP).

That other USP, making the car available on a monthly subscription base like being offered from the beginning with the 01 PHEV, is not available yet. That subscription model, with the flexibility of ending it at any time with a 20-day notice, was the other fresh out-of-the-box thinking feature envisioned by Alain Visser.

Instead of joining the roughly 150 car brands that focus on selling new cars, Visser claimed to be the only automotive boss who is not tempted to focus on selling his cars. He preferred to try out a mobility service model and push his customers to share it as much as possible for sustainability reasons.

Visser’s comeback?

But apparently, it didn’t work out fast enough in profitability for his bosses, who were looking over his shoulders, and Visser was ‘friendly’ ousted at the end of last year. After eight months of silence, Alain Visser suddenly reappeared in the picture with a statement on his LinkedIn page.

“After nearly eight years, I recently left my brainchild, Lynk & Co. Now, alongside a few brilliant minds from various backgrounds, I’m setting up a new venture that will push sustainable mobility as a service to the next level. If you thought we made waves with Lynk & Co, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Stay tuned…,” Vissers ends.