Published : Aug. 31, 2021 - 15:46
Renault Samsung’s Busan plant (Renault Samsung Motors)
Renault Group set up a joint venture with China’s Geely Automobile Holdings earlier this month and plans to unveil a Renault brand hybrid passenger car in China and have Renault Samsung Motors develop an eco-friendly vehicle.
For the new eco-friendly car, Renault Group said it will share technologies with Lynk & Co, a Chinese-Swedish automobile brand owned by Geely.
The research and development team of Renault Samsung is expected to work on an eco-friendly car tailored to Korean customers’ needs.
Lynk & Co, launched in 2016, is 100 percent owned by Geely but promotes itself as a product of Volvo’s technology.
Positioning itself as a startup, Lynk & Co cut branding costs by naming its models 01, 02 and so forth, and seeks to make futuristic cars with sustainability as a key theme.
The company built a digital infrastructure in cooperation with Microsoft and Alibaba for online sales from the beginning.
Instead of adding options to a base model, Lynk & Co simplified trims by offering most options as basic items for a single price.
Thanks to its new ways of marketing that drastically reduced the sale price, the 01 sold over 6,000 units in just 137 seconds during advance bookings, becoming the world’s fastest sold car.
The 01, Lynk & Co’s first model, was based on Volvo’s CMA platform.
The same platform was used in XC40, Volvo’s small SUV, but the 01 is much cheaper.
Lynk & Co.’s latest model, the 09, uses the same platform and engine as Volvo’s XC90, but is also less costly.
“Lynk” in the brand name means it will link the East and the West; people and cars; as well as different generations, and “Co” stands for cooperation, community and cool.
With all of its cars having SIM cards that enable mobile telecommunication, Lynk & Co defines its cars as “mobility” that incorporates software.
Like fast fashion, the mobility brand also upgrades its models four times a year to quickly absorb new trends.
Details of the new eco-friendly car to be developed by Renault Samsung, such as the type of vehicle and when it will be released, are yet to be decided, according to a Renault Samsung official.
By Kim So-hyun (
sophie@heraldcorp.com)