We report from the theatrical, laser-lit launch of Lynk & Co’s first European EV, the 02

Launched with an ambitious 'techno banquet' held in a darkened warehouse in Milan’s Taliedo district, the new Lynk & Co 02 is the Swedish-headquartered Chinese company’s first EV for Europe. The 02 (pronounced ‘Zero Two’ and known as the Z20 in China, where there is already an 02 model, albeit a small ICE hatchback launched in 2018), is a crossover coupe, a now familiar segment that has been shaped by customer demand for novelty.

This is the age of the influencer and these days we're all experiencing the world through their gyro-stabilised lenses and snappily edited reels. As such, Lynk & Co’s backdrop of looping ambient drones and slabs of laser lighting poking through smoky atmospherics, with boiler-suited wait staff and carefully presented food was all designed to be hash-tagged and posted in real time, not written about several days after the fact.

The car itself begins the event shrouded under silk, boxed on by translucent screens, upon which sub-Holzer-esque slogans are flashed up – 'feel inspired ', 'great at being a good car', 'dare to be'. After the second course, the strolling band of musicians line up and the some of the staff transform into a dance troupe to kickstart the grand reveal. Off come the covers and before us is a handsome, if slightly generic take on this increasingly popular genre, with four doors, a high-riding body, pronounced wheelarches and a swooping roofline. The 02’s plinth starts to move about the hall, presenting itself before the rows of tables like a medieval jester.

The company’s CEO, Nicolas Lopez Appelgren, tells the assembled throng that ‘listening to our customers is in our DNA. We are committed to making our cars available in the way that works best for them, whether that is through subscription, car sharing or retail.’ This idea of subscribing to a car goes to the heart of Lynk & Co’s offer, an ethos the company has adopted since it began back in 2016. From the outset, the idea was to create a car to appeal to the most auto-cynical generation of all, the millennials, lured in by the thought of passive income and lower ownership costs.

Lynk & Co describes itself as ‘not just a car company [but] a mobility provider’. Subscription models for car ownership are only just starting to take off. Earlier this year, consulting firm Deloitte estimated ‘that 8 percent of all new vehicle registrations … will be based on subscription models by 2025.’ A market that is currently worth around $1bn a year could treble within ten years.

Lynk & Co wants to be at the forefront of this shift in perception, where consumers favour subscriptions and car-sharing rather than long-term ownership via HP, traditional loans or cash. One hope for the 02 is that it might facilitate localised car sharing, something that several apps and start-ups have been focused on in an attempt to disrupt the stranglehold of Uber and Zipcar on personal mobility solutions.

An automotive side hustle might not be right for everyone but it is certainly a disruptive idea, having ramifications for everything from design through to dealerships. The company is only just getting around to opening the latter in Europe, where it finds itself partnered with sister companies Volvo and Polestar. Lynk & Co tell us that the biggest take-up is in the public-spirited Netherlands, where 23 per cent of subscribed-to cars are loaned out to others by their subscribers. Italy is at nearly 20 per cent, while France is between 10-15 per cent.

David Green, the company’s chief cigital officer, says that ‘it’s possible to make money’ out of their business model. ‘Rare, but entirely possible,’ he adds, noting that most people will simply reduce their monthly fee rather than get into the black. Building such networks take time. ‘Just one individual can start a sharing community on Facebook or Instagram,’ Green says, adding that it can grow from there. ‘We’ve even seen cars purchased just so they can be shared.’

The mechanism by which this self-initiated car-sharing takes place is Lynk & Co’s app. Like many manufacturers’ smartphone solutions, it provides a digital key for the car. When sharing is enabled, owners don’t so much as share the key, but share the digital lock on the car, which can then be opened by someone else’s app. At the same time, insurance details change automatically to accommodate the new driver.

It's clever stuff and has definitely found traction amongst a generation happy with Lime bikes, Airbnb and a less onerous sense of ownership in all things. Inside the 02, there’s an emphasis on hard-wearing recycled but still soft and easily cleanable materials, all the better to create a hard-wearing, hard-working environment. There’s even a ‘tag’ on the dashboard that one pulls to initiate the car-sharing app, unnecessary perhaps but indicative of how much Lynk & Co want this feature to seem built-in to its models. The company calls the approach ‘game-changing’ but thus far the game hasn’t significantly changed.

Perhaps it’s not helped by the burgeoning and often confusing Geely Auto portfolio. Alongside Volvo, Polestar and Zeekr, the company also looks after Lotus and LEVC, better known as the makers of the London Taxi. Like any young sibling in big, noisy family, Lynk & Co has to fight to make itself seen.

That fight has taken the shape of design differentiation, with initial work overseen by the late Peter Horbury. Tasked with creating an identity for each of the various brands whilst also cleverly sharing platforms and other technologies, one sees familial resemblance in silhouette, if not in destial. It’s also tempting to see Lynk & Co as a hedged bet in the face of a potential collapse in regular car sales.

In China the brand has no fewer than nine difficult models, from 01 through to 09, with this, the Z20, shortly to be joined by the flagship Z10 EV sedan (which shares a platform with the Polestar 4). There was no word as to how popular the subscription model was over there (Europe is the global leader for this sort of thing, apparently) but the fact that the UK is currently excluded from Lynk & Co’s (and Zeekr’s) sales plan, due to the cost of RHD conversion, indicates that the parent company is operating on slender margins.

In the flesh, this confusion is less… confusing, and this particular cog in the Geely machine is rather distinctive. The 4.4m-long 02 is more upright than its mechanical sibling, the Polestar 4, and fits nicely into the same ethos as the Ford Capri, Renault Rafale, Skoda Enyaq Coupe et al. It’s also much more stylish that the ageing Lynk & Co 01 (even though it recently received a major overhaul), the only other model available to European customers. The company describes its design approach as being ‘aerodramatic,’ stressing that getting the proportions right is an essential part of pushing the brand upmarket.

Shaped in Europe, at the company’s Gothenburg design centre, the 02 scores with its simple surfacing, set off by the attractive ‘Techno Magenta’ launch colour. Stefan Rosen, president of Lynk & Co Design, described how the large 20-inch wheels sit in pronounced wheelarches, while the high-sided body allows for excellent internal space without compromising the often contradictory requirements of those very listened-to customers (‘the challenge was to make the car look sexy. And inclusive. And be a family car. Which is also sporty,’ one of the design team said, with a hint of exasperation).

On that last point, David Green proudly pointed to the ‘innovative’ Co:lab function. ‘We wanted to connect directly with the people driving our cars,’ he explains, ‘so from inside the car, you can press a button and leave us a message. It could be an idea, it could be a suggestion, it can be something you like and sometimes it's something people want to change.’ Apparently 6,000 customers have done exactly that on the 01, which illustrates just how easily the modern car can be turned into a two-way connection, for better or for worse.

What else is new? Oh, the 02 has a special horn for badgering tardy pedestrians. Dubbed the ‘hey honk’, you can administer a friendly toot to anyone lulled by the car’s silent powertrain, rather than a conventional (and aggressive) horn. It’s a gimmick, of course, one that might not find favour in horn-averse Europe.

Once the presentations were over, creepy AI-generated animated cityscapes blossomed on the surrounding screens as we were left to finish off our banquet. The red slash of the 02’s illuminated rear spoiler cut through the bluish haze and we pondered the dichotomies of designing a car with an emotional connection that could also be loaned out to strangers.

All in all, the 02 launch was a grand song and dance of the kind that’s rarely seen in today’s more austere auto industry. It was undeniably an experience (if that’s what you call trying to eat beetroot salad with a teaspoon on a backlit square plate in the dark while three content-capturing videographers hover just three feet away). Here’s hoping that it won’t be the only experience we get of this attractive, intriguing but not exactly earth-shatteringly innovative new car.

Lynk & Co 02, European prices from €35,495, LynkCo.com, @LynkCo, LynkCo.com.cn