Belgian Alain Visser, founder and driving force behind Swedish-Chinese Lynk & Co, is unexpectedly leaving the company “to pursue other opportunities outside the company”, according to a press release surfacing on Thursday. He will leave his European CEO chair to Nicolas Lopez Appelgren, a Volvo veteran for 28 years and current Head of Retail Operations at Volvo Cars.

So far, it’s unclear why Visser is throwing in the towel and what his future plans are. Visser was the ‘founding father’ of Lynk & Co’s subscription model in Europe for no longer selling cars as a primary goal but to rent the Lynk & Co PHEV as the sole model available in Europe monthly at affordable prices. It’s unclear whether troubles reaching profitability in time caused the sudden leave.

Only selling in China

In China, Lynk & Co only sells cars, as the Chinese tend to be more sensitive to owning a car as a status symbol than Europeans today. Instead of joining the somewhat 150 car brands that focus on selling a new car, Visser claimed to be the only automotive boss for now not tempting to sell 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. With 74 million new cars to be sold worldwide in 2023, 15% is still a whopping 11 million potential interested clients to go for.

Wild horse in the stable

“Today’s industry is still designing and engineering cars, producing them in big factories, and shipping them to dealers who sell and repair them. It started 120 years ago like that, and that’s how they’re still trying to do it today,” Visser told newmobility.news in an interview at the start.

“I really think that Lynk & Co is the wild horse in the stable. We ask our clients to become members of a community. As part of that community, they do not only rent a car; they can also participate in events, go to museums, restaurants, the gym, etc.”

The idea, launched in Sweden and the Netherlands just after the coronavirus pandemic and later extended to Belgium, Germany, Italy, and France, initially caught on more than envisioned. To an extent, the brand became a victim of its success while dealing with shortages and long delivery times like every other brand in the sector.

Raising to €600 per month

But despite that ‘unhoped success,’ in August 2022, Lynk & Co had to change its monthly subscription price for the 01 SUV PHEV for the first time from €500 to €550 (VAT incl.) or a complete 10% for all new contracts. The monthly fee was recently raised again to 600 euros, still offering full options, insurance and maintenance, and 1 250 km monthly (15 000 km a year) included.

But private users – so-called B2C clients – and not B2B or business users can earn back a part of that monthly fee by sharing their cars with other Lynk & Co members who register for free. The ‘lenders’ can offer their car at an hourly or daily rental price they define themselves.

Alain Visser, after a career at GM and Opel, and being Senior Vice President Marketing, Sales & Customer Service at Volvo from 2013 to 2015, was appointed Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Sales by the Chinese Geely Auto Group. He was one of the founding fathers of the Lynk & Co brand and became its European CEO in 2017.

Whole career at Volvo

Visser will be succeeded from January 8th by Nicolas Lopez Appelgren, current Vice-President Retail Operations + Learning & Development at Volvo. Appelgren buit up a 28-year career in automotive at Volvo entirely, starting in Aftersales Business Development in Gothenburg in 1995.

After several international posts bringing him to Brussels, Belgium, twice, the US, UK, and Brazil, he returned to Gothenburg in 2003 in several director’s functions, become the Vice President Product Marketing in 2013. In April 2022, he took up his current duties.