Industry News: Lynk & Co Pushes Back Launch For Europe and U.S.

[William Maley]

Last October, Chinese automaker Geely unveiled a new global brand called Lynk & Co. This brand stood out in a few ways,

• Vehicles will be sold online
• Owners will be able to share their Lynk & Co vehicles to make some money
• An open application programming interface to develop in-car applications
• Recently announcing all of their vehicles would come with lifetime warranties

The plan was for the brand to launch in China this year, with Europe and U.S. following in late 2018. But a new report from Automotive News says the launch for Europe and U.S. has been pushed back to 2019.

“We think we will start in Europe between the first quarter and the first half of 2019 and enter the U.S. some months later,” said Alain Visser, Lynk & Co's senior vice president of marketing and sales.

The reason for pushback comes down to Lynk & Co needing more time to establish a company-owned dealership network as it is taking slightly longer to find the locations. Visser said the company wants to build up a network of 500 dealers comprising of flagship and temporary pop-up stores. Despite having stores, vehicles will be sold online and delivered to the owner's house or office.

Visser said plans for the Chinese launch is still on schedule with the 01 crossover launching towards the end of the year.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
Pic Credit: Newspress

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[G. David Felt]

Life Time Warranties are cool, but everything wears out and I can see this bankrupting a company.

In regards to sharing an auto. No thanks too many pigs that have a I do not care attitude. I like my auto's like new and am a bit OCD about them. 

Interesting is how Porsche style like that CUV is in the above story.

[daves87rs]

Car still scares me....

[67impss]

daves87rs what in particular scares you about the car, my understanding is that the car hasn't even been released yet nor have we seen touched or driven it. I don't want you to think that I'm beating their drum but Geely and Cherry though they knock off styleing from what I've read make decent autos probably on the order of 2nd generation Hyundai. A guy I knew had one and the power window regulators went out a lot.comfortable and good mileage. Like it or not the Chinese exports Buick and Volvo both premium autos.

[riviera74]

Hmm.  Someone explain to me why anyone would create a new car and export it into one of the most crowded auto environments ever (especially a stagnant European market) and have a vehicle whose unique selling point sounds more like a car-sharing service than car ownership.

Call me skeptical.  Good luck though.

[William Maley]

@riviera74 I wrote about this back in October in a news story and there are a couple of factors,

Quote

Automakers who don't compete in the U.S. see numbers like "16-million-plus sales volume of new cars and trucks" and "average transaction price of $30,665, according to J.D. Power" and want a piece of this. But the U.S. is an unforgiving place.

"People around the world look at the sales volumes going on here, and they look at the fortunes being made here, and they look at what the outlook is in other parts of the world -- and they want to be here," said Charlie Hughes, owner of the brand-consulting firm Brand Rules.

"But the plain truth is that unless you're coming in with something truly unique, it is just not plausible that you're going to get anywhere in this market."

 

Here's the original story - Why Automakers Want To Break Into the U.S.