Lynk & Co 01 Concept 2017

[superkappa125]

 

 

 

 

Cita

Lynk & Co is a new car brand that was ‘born digital’

Sweden and China unite for the ultimate connected SUV, and it's headed to the US

by Vlad Savov Oct 19, 2016, 6:00p

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

I’m in Sweden this week for the launch of a new car brand. The location: Gothenburg’s science park, a cluster of high-tech engineering talent and equipment nestled in a picturesque forested landscape. The purpose: understanding where Lynk & Co comes from, what it is and what it offers, and where it hopes to be headed. The connection between those things is Volvo, the 89-year-old Swedish marque that calls Gothenburg home and shares a parent company, China’s Geely, with the brand new Lynk & Co.

"CONNECTIVITY TO LYNK & CO WILL BE WHAT SAFETY IS TO VOLVO."

"Connectivity to Lynk & Co will be what safety is to Volvo," says Mats Fagerhag. He’s chief of the China Euro Vehicle Technology (CEVT) team of researchers who have been working for the past few years to unite the expertise and assets shared by Volvo and Geely (pronounced "gee-lee") into a new platform for developing the cars of the future. That platform is called the Compact Modular Architecture (CMA) and it underpins Volvo’s upcoming 40 series, but more importantly it’s the foundation upon which the new Lynk & Co cars are built.

It’s not often that you hear of a new car brand launching with an open API, sharing services, and the first dedicated app store for cars, but those are the top-line items on Lynk & Co’s agenda and press release. There is a vehicle making its debut here, of course — the hybrid Lynk & Co 01 compact SUV — but the pitch is grander than just this initial model. Geely wants Lynk & Co to essentially be a Volvo for millennials: reassuring and secure, but also perfectly integrated and synced up with our constantly connected lives

What’s more, like Tesla, Lynk & Co will be going direct to consumers, cutting out the substantial cost of middlemen dealerships and both delivering and picking up cars for servicing right at the customer’s door. Geely claims that as much as 25 percent of a car’s cost can be sunk into dealerships, so while it will have flagship stores around the world, its primary distribution method for Lynk & Co cars will be direct. The company hopes to get the first Lynk & Co vehicles out to China in 2017, to be followed by the US and Europe thereafter.

LYNK & CO ISN’T LAYERING TECH ON TOP OF THE CAR, IT’S BUILDING THE CAR AROUND THE TECH

Every carmaker is presently addressing the challenge of how best to work with smartphones and a more connected world, but Lynk & Co’s advantage is that it’s not layering technology on top of what it already has, high-tech is already at the heart of its design. Fagerhag explains that Lynk & Co cars will offer not only Apple CarPlay, MirrorLink, and Android Auto (in some markets), but also "every single one of our cars will have onboard telematics for permanent connection with the world via the Lynk & Co cloud." That connectivity is handled in partnership with Ericsson, which happens to have a couple of gleaming R&D buildings only a minute’s walk away from the CEVT headquarters, which is itself within a stone’s throw away from Volvo's facilities.

 

Lynk & Co

 

Knowing only the name Lynk & Co and some of the backstory of its parent company, I arrived in Gothenburg with a healthy measure of skepticism. It seemed to me like a Chinese company was trying to buy its way into Europe, and to a certain extent, that’s exactly what this venture is. But after a day of learning about the literal hundreds of years of automotive design experience walking through the CEVT halls and around the four global Geely design studios, I’m now much more open to the idea. After all, there’s nothing wrong with throwing money at a problem if it’s spent wisely.

"NO HISTORY, NOTHING TO CONSTRAIN US OTHER THAN OUR OWN IMAGINATIONS."

If Fagerhag is the engineering godfather overseeing Lynk & Co development, his design counterpart is the decorated Volvo veteran Peter Horbury. Horbury received the brief for the Lynk & Co design in the fall of 2013: it had to be a design-driven brand (something he recalls with a grin of pure joy) with global appeal that should nevertheless look and be designed in a northern European style. And the first car to lead that charge had to be a compact SUV. That’s it. Everything else, as Horbury asserts convincingly, was up to his 400-strong design team to decide. "With this all-new brand, there was absolutely nothing," says Horbury. "No history, nothing to constrain us other than our own imaginations."

Tempted by the offer of a completely blank slate to build both a car and a brand on, many automotive designers "left highly influential careers at major brands to come here and work with me," claims the Geely design chief. One of the other things I discovered on this trip is that Geely is already responsible for making London’s TX5 hybrid black cabs, so the parent company does have some credibility that stretches beyond Volvo’s pedigree and the high level of competence in the CEVT and Geely Design studios.

A CLASSIC ASPIRATIONAL BRAND TO SLOT IN BETWEEN GEELY’S OWN CARS AND VOLVO’S PREMIUM LINEUP

So what is the Lynk & Co proposition? It aims to be the classic aspirational brand, slotting in between Geely’s own-brand budget vehicles and Volvo’s more premium-focused lineup. Speaking of the 01 SUV, Horbury says "this car gives a perceived value way beyond its price," giving away the ultimate goal of the initiative. The 01 has a bold and rather aggressive design, with its headlights protruding vertically as a signature visual feature. Horbury calls them "piercing twin blades of light." It has large wheels, low overhangs, enormous rear-view mirrors, and a flat-bottomed steering wheel. But most importantly, it is loaded with tech, which can be accessed most readily via a center-mounted 10.1-inch touchscreen.

 

Lynk & Co

 

With a Lynk & Co car, you’ll be able to manage almost everything via a smartphone app, including providing digital keys to give access to your friends and family. The entire user interface within the car is customizable, including rearranging icons and functions to suit your tastes, and the highlight color will sync up with your chosen background image. The all-digital instrument panel is also rearrangeable. One last quote from the endlessly quotable Horbury:

"The perceived quality begins in design. Every single component that comes into contact with the customer’s senses must reflect the highest possible quality for the price."

Lynk & Co vehicles will be even smarter, though. They’ll be able to share data among themselves, including things like available parking spaces and the correct speed to go in order to hit the next green light just in time. There’s a 4G antenna integrated into the roof of the Lynk & Co 01, keeping it permanently connected with the help of Microsoft and Alibaba alongside Ericsson. The one, quite significant, downside to all of this effort is that it also reads like a manual titled "let's make a car with the most possible hacking vectors." In the connected world, greater convenience always comes with the tradeoff of greater vulnerability.

In branding terms, Volvo wants to keep its distance and Geely stresses that this is a wholly independent brand. But in reality, the same humans are working on both brands and their offices are right next to each other. Geely CEO Conghui An acknowledges this, saying that "along this journey, we can’t go without the help of Volvo as a good mentor." And Volvo itself knows that "a strong Lynk will also be good for Volvo" — which, admittedly, might be the nice way of saying that it’s better for Volvo that its new sister brand doesn’t fail miserably.

As someone who’s unlikely to ever be tempted to buy an SUV, I’m not ideally positioned to judge the Lynk & Co 01’s looks, but I like the intent behind this car and the tech-savvy approach. I also like that it’s highly distinctive, and as Stefan Rosén, head of advanced design at Geely says, Lynk & Co "would rather be something special to someone, than be bland to everyone." That is the sort of attitude we need more of in the car industry.

THE LYNK & CO 02 AND 03 ARE ALREADY DESIGNED AND WAITING IN THE WINGS

Lynk & Co wrapped up its debut presentation by rolling out an aggressive Lynk concept car, also built atop the CMA, showing off the flexibility and versatility of that framework. Its headlights were even zanier than the 01’s, and it was laden with nightclub-like illumination and other touches of design excess. That was just for fun, but the Lynk & Co plan includes a 02, a 03, and further models to complete a full range of cars under this new brand. Electrification will play a central role in all of them, including, it seems, some all-electric models — though the initial 01 is a more conventional hybrid affair with a 1.5L engine to go along with its battery-powered electric motors.

More of Lynk & Co’s strategy will be revealed tomorrow, October 20th, at the formal launch of the 01 and the overall brand in Berlin. That’s when Geely will divulge the full details surrounding its unique approach to marketing and distribution with Lynk & Co, and how the company hopes it will help transform the modes of car ownership and operation. Whatever happens, though, it’s quite obvious that Lynk & Co will be here for the long haul. The designers and engineers assembled in Gothenburg today tell me that they’ve already completed most of the work on the other cars in the range and it’s simply a matter of rolling them all out now.

 

 

The Verge

 

Praticamente è per Volvo quello che Scion è stato per Toyota: marchio di gamma inferiore, basato su CMA, con interessanti feature di connettività.

Mi aspetto un flop memorabile.

[Aymaro]

è sempre difficile disegnare un'auto quando non si ha un brand, perchè non si hanno riferimenti ed ispirazioni, c'è il bisogno di differenziarsi (ma tanto ti accomuneranno lo stesso a qualcosa di esistente) e si ha la paura di osare, ma qui sembra che non si siano impegnanti molto...

Modificato 20 Ottobre 2016 da Aymaro

[MaxKTMp3]

Di muso sembra un KiaSportage che azzanna un vecchio Mustang

Comunque si vede di molto peggio

[francomilano]

pensavo che il designer fosse della peugeot tanto è arzigogolato il design. Che pastrocchio. Una macchina che si chiama link....se clikko la plancia chissà dove finisco

Modificato 20 Ottobre 2016 da francomilano

[Aymaro]

9 minuti fa, Aymaro dice:

è sempre difficile disegnare un'auto quando non si ha un brand, perchè non si hanno riferimenti ed ispirazioni, c'è il bisogno di differenziarsi (ma tanto ti accomuneranno lo stesso a qualcosa di esistente) e si ha la paura di osare, ma qui sembra che non si siano impegnanti molto...

ecco 

4 minuti fa, MaxKTMp3 dice:

Di muso sembra un KiaSportage che azzanna un vecchio Mustang

Comunque si vede di molto peggio

sia ben chiaro, non ce l'ho con te, è una cosa che viene naturale, soprattutto se non ha altri confronti

Modificato 20 Ottobre 2016 da Aymaro

[nubironaSW]

Aymaro, effettivamente sembra un copia incolla di un sacco di cose già viste, una cinesata pazzesca, sotto la quale magari montano un solido telaio Volvo, l'unica cosa positiva.

 

Così a primo bozzo, bocciata, magari però live potrebbe essere più piacevole del previsto. Anche la nuova Kia Sportage in foto mi fece una pessima impressione, poi live... resta 'orenda', ma meno di quello che supponevo....

 

(my two cents)

[AndreaB]

L'ennesimo suv "sportivo"... ne sentivo proprio il bisogno................................

[MaxKTMp3]

21 minuti fa, Aymaro dice:

ecco 

sia ben chiaro, non ce l'ho con te, è una cosa che viene naturale, soprattutto se non ha altri confronti

 

 ...proprio il tuo scritto mi mosse a tal banal considerazione 

[pennellotref]

Oramai il modello di business non è fare una macchina e venderla ma produrre un ecosistema che ti "gestisca" in toto la vita..... Noi autopareristi siamo destinati al ruolo di dinosauri. Big data mon amour 

Per intenderci, questi so' ancora peggio, ma hanno il pregio di dirtelo apertamente:

 

http://jalopnik.com/this-chinese-tech-company-wants-to-take-over-every-sing-1787985975

 

Cita

This Chinese Tech Company Wants To Take Over Every Single Thing You Love In Your Life

Andrew P Collins

Yesterday 4:24pm

Filed to: LEECO

4.3K

762

(Screencap from LeEco Press Conference)

“LeEco” has been called “the Chinese Netflix” because it operates one of the country’s largest video streaming services. Today we learned it also wants to make your car, your phone, your “content,” and sure why not– your bicycle, too. If it added anything about the actual viability of said plans, I couldn’t find it in the full toilet of corporatespeak the company tried to flush down our throats today.

The self-driving, fully-electric LeSee Pro. (Photo Credit: LeEco)

We’ve been watching LeEco for a few months now, since it announced a fully-electric Tesla Model S rival called “LeSee Pro” to be unveiled at this year’s Beijing Auto Show. Information supporting LeEco’s possible reality: it’s raised $1 billion to bring its “car” to market according to Bloomberg. Against: it’s a strategic partner with Faraday Future which has yet to deliver anything but hype since it started advertising itself over a year ago.

 

That said, part of LeEco’s presentation today included a line about Faraday Future bringing a car to the massive Consumer Electronics Show in January. We heard the same last year and I drove all the way to Las Vegas to look at a full-scale spaceship model, but I’m willing to keep an open mind.

And let me tell you, that was no easy task today as LeEco bombarded members of the media and everyone else sitting through its two-hour live streamed press conference with Silicon Valley buzzwords and vague infographics about an “Open Content Ecosystem” that will “unite platforms, content, devices and applications.”

LeEco did not have the electric sedan of the future to show us, because its flight got delayed and it got stuck in traffic (San Fran problems, amirite?), which CEO Yueting Jia precisely described as “a real bummer” to the crowd through his translator.

 

What we did see was a lot of rhetoric about an “open loop system” between television, phones, bicycles, virtual reality, and cars. So here’s where I make one more joke about Silicon Valley having more smoke and mirrors than a Pink Floyd laser show and actually try and decode what the hell these people in tight black t-shirts were talking about.

That cassette tape is a virtual reality headset. (Screencap from LeEco Press Conference)

As one of LeEco’s presenters, the company has “Solved the problem” of a “fragmented” marketplace. He was presumably referring to the fact that you have to buy different things from different companies.

 

It is so annoying that I have to buy my phone and TV and bicycle and virtual reality gear and car and videos from different companies.

Now if one corporate monolith could control absolutely everything I consume and use to get around, that would sure make things easier for me and definitely not ever have any negative repercussions for consumer choice at all.

 

The concept of “the common thread is you!” was repeated several times. That’s the justification LeEco is going for as to why the same company should be providing everything you touch.

LeEco did get squeeze some specifics regarding its technology and transportation ideas between platitudes– basically everything is like the stuff you have, but more futurey.

The bicycle, called LeMall, boasts “hydraulic disc brakes” and “integrated lighting,” neither of which set it apart in today’s bicycle marketplace. Oh, hang on, it will also be integrated with an app so you can lock and track it from your LeEco phone.

 

As for the car, it pretty much looks like an Acura NSX-influenced Tesla Model S with an interior like an architectural model. As I mentioned earlier, it didn’t make it on stage but it was at the press conference and hey it will be in the next Transformers movie!

Bullseye. (Screencap from LeEco Press Conference)

So there you are, right in the middle of LeEco’s corporate gunsights. And now you know there’s a company building steam to bundle communication and transportation, then monopolize it.

 

As to how close they actually are do doing it, well, the car didn’t make it on stage.

Fine OT

[Pandino]

Frontale vagamente ispirato al Fiat Toro

Belli gli interni