Lynk & Co goes all electric with the Zero

No, you’re not reading an article from four years ago. Lynk & Co will unveil an all new electric car believe to be called the Zero at the European Design Center in April. The car goes by the internal code name of E371 and should officially launch around the middle of the year priced between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan (27,800 to 41,700 USD).

For those with a long memory the Zero concept was shown by Lynk & Co at the 2020 Beijing Auto Show which due to Covid was delayed until September of that year. That car by the time it reached production in 2021 had become the Zeekr 001.

Ironically the new Zero seems to be quite closely related to the recently revamped Zeekr 001. It will ride on the same 800V architecture platform and will be quite similar in dimensions. The Zero is expected to be over five meters long, around 2 meters wide and have a wheelbase of about three meters. Spy shots confirmed by a teaser image taken from a Lynk & Co internal conference confirm that the Zero is a sedan with fastback styling and that it adopts the same Lynk & Co family design as the latest Lynk & Co 07 EM-P.

Information about the European Design Center unveiling comes from a shot of a slide in Lynk & Co’s internal presentation about the new car and we’re really not too sure what this means. It could simply mean it will be unveiled at an internal event at the Geely Design Center in Gothenburg, Sweden or alternatively the car might be shown at the Milan Design Week which will be held in April.

The Zero will unveil a number of new features for a Lynk & Co car. Firstly there will rear wheel steering and the car will be able to crab walk and undertake tank turns. There is what Lynk & Co refer to as an AI digital chassis and the car will have CDC electromagnetic suspension and dual-chamber air suspension to achieve a magic carpet like ride. Spy shots show an active rear wing at the back. Human Machine Interface computing power will come from a new self-developed E05 car chip which is meant to outperform the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 chip in terms of computing power.

Spy shots of the interior show that there is a long embedded LCD instrument screen along with a floating narrow bezel central console screen. Like the 07 EM-P and 08 EM-P the car should come with the Lynk Flyme Auto Meizu HMI system.

Lynk & Co is a brand jointly developed by Geely and Volvo and founded in 2016. Initially they only sold ICE cars but quite quickly introduced PHEVs. Until recently they have largely been known for SUVs with just a sole sedan, the 03, which has now been joined by the 07 EM-P.

Editor’s note:

The Zero concept  becoming the Zeekr 001 took everyone by surprise. Back in 2021 I interviewed Stefan Rosén, vice president Lynk & Co Design, and he claimed that the Zero concept was from the beginning designed as a new brand. Commentators however were not convinced and the move created a lot of questions about the future of the Lynk & Co brand as the world transitions to an all electric future. The new Zero would seem to be that answer but if Zeekr isn’t an electric Lynk & Co what exactly is the difference between the two brands? That seems to be a conundrum that Geely is increasingly giving us with the proliferation of brands in its portfolio.

Sources: Autohome, IT House, Xinchuxing