Lynk & Co: Hanging and hitting BYD, can you see me?

When it comes to being a “seeker”, the Chinese car brand Lynk & Co can be described as an experienced “seeker” veteran.

Pick up two most representative examples: In 2016, the Lynk & Co brand fell to the ground in Berlin, Germany.A year later, the first mass-produced car developed based on the CMA mid-level vehicle architecture was launched.

The press conference is not over yet, the Lynk & Co 01, the pioneering new brand that Geely Group has high hopes for, has been put on the hat of “Volvo replacement” by unknown consumers. This hat has not been taken off by Lynk & Co to this day.

Even more absurd things happened in 2020. In September of this year, Lynk & Co released the ZERO CONCEPT concept car, a pure electric product based on the new SEA vast car-building architecture, and vowed that the car would be delivered in the second half of 2021, and consumers were crazy about it.

As a result, one year later, the Lynk & Co ZERO not only did not wait for the mass production car to roll off the assembly line, but was robbed of its name by a concept brand that was still in the PPT stage. The day before April Fool’s Day in 2021, Lynk & Co ZERO changed its name to Ji Krypton 001 and reincarnated into the Chinese auto market for the second time.

You read that right, it was the Internet celebrity electric car that later became famous for its “highly mentally retarded” car system.

These two dramatic black humor incidents made Lynk & Co, who was not yet 6 years old, directly enlightened:If I don’t pretend, I have a showdown. Let’s replace it, and reduce the price without reducing the personality. Electricity is no longer involved, and it is better to hurry up and make money.

Lynk & Co, which has penetrated the true meaning of selling cars, has launched six models of 01, 02, 03, 05, 06, and 09, four of which (01, 05, 06, 09) are based on the fuel version. to a lot of powder. On April 18 this year, the cumulative sales of Lynk & Co in the Chinese market exceeded 700,000 units.

After crossing the threshold of 700,000 units, Lynk & Co released two new moves. These two actions are not only not complaining, but also very kind.

“Hanging” BYD

Lynk & Co’s first move was to stick to the hybrid route and not let go if it didn’t achieve its goal.

Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Automobile Group, expressed his views on the three driving routes:“Pure electric is not as advanced as imagined, fuel vehicles are not as traditional as imagined, and hybrid is not a transitional route.”

In 2018, Geely Group developed the first-generation hybrid system consisting of a 1.5T three-cylinder turbocharged engine, a single motor, a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission and a power battery pack – the Geely ePro hybrid system.

A year later, Lynk & Co directly matched this plug-in hybrid system to the 01 PHEV, with four driving modes, a maximum power of 262 horsepower, a peak torque of 390 Nm, an acceleration of 100 km/h in 7.3 seconds, and a pure electric range of 51 km. Lynk & Co has a soft spot for this 1.5T plug-in mixing system, and it continues to output on 05 and 06.

It was not until the flagship model Lynk & Co 09 PHEV in 2021 that it was replaced with the Drive-E 2.0T T8 engine and P1+P4 dual-motor plug-in hybrid system from Volvo.With a maximum power of 431 horsepower and a peak torque of 659 Nm, the 09 PHEV with a wheelbase of nearly 3 meters can accelerate from 100 kilometers to 5.6 seconds.

It is a little regrettable that this plug-in hybrid system, which has the reputation of “sven thug”, is only suitable for the SPA platform, and cannot be translated to other Lynk & Co models based on the CMA and BMA platforms.

This is not the first time Geely Group has launched a hybrid system, nor is it the first time that Lynk & Co has picked fruit from Geely Group. At the end of last year, Geely Group released the second-generation hybrid system “Rayshen Zhiqing Hi X”. When Lynk & Co learned about it, it didn’t greet them at all.

The basic components of this “Thorzhiqing Hi·X” are very rich: two dedicated engines DHE20 and DHE15, two hybrid transmissions DHT and DHT Pro, which can completely cover the matrix of small to medium-sized models after being arranged and combined. Various power architectures such as HEV, PHEV and REEV.

Among them, the DHE15 for the mainstream consumer market is a three-cylinder engine with a thermal efficiency of 43.32%, which exceeds the thermal efficiency of the BYD Xiaoyun 1.5L engine of 43.04%, and also leaves Toyota and Honda who have always understood engines well.

The ingeniousness of the DHE15 engine is that it can output a maximum power of 110kW at 5500 rpm, and can continuously output a peak torque of 225 mN in a wide range from 2500 to 4000 rpm, which is more than enough for a single power source.

There are two matching transmissions: DHT in first gear and DHT Pro in third gear. Among them, DHT Pro uses the layout of two rows of planetary gear sets to achieve 3-speed transmission, and achieves pure electric, series and parallel modes.

One gear more than the Great Wall’s Lemon Hybrid, there are three advantages: first, use the engine and motor in parallel to solve the problem of insufficient acceleration force in the rear section of the PHEV model; second, when driving at medium and low speeds, connect the engine and the motor in series. Its duties, improve the overall efficiency of the system;

Third, use the high speed ratio of 1st gear to realize the “ejection start” that is only available for fuel vehicles, and improve the starting efficiency.

When Geely designed the “Thori Engine Hi·X”, it was more convenient that the 1.5T engine was matched with a 3-speed gearbox, so that even products such as Geely Xingyue L Hi·X could use the most advanced technology of the group. technology.

Unlike Geely Xingyue, Lynk & Co sticks the word “performance” on its forehead seriously, and the performance here includes two meanings of “acceleration performance” and “endurance performance”.

On this plug-in hybrid system, Lynk & Co used some brains to match the Drive-E 2.0T T8 engine with the third-speed DHT Pro.The adjusted products include a long-range PHEV with a pure electric power of 180 kilometers, and a manic PHEV with an acceleration of 100 kilometers within 5 seconds.

In terms of product schedule, Lynk & Co is also very aggressive: 4 models will be launched in 2022, 3 models will be launched in two years, and the whole series will be hybridized in 2025. This means that the time for Lynk & Co to transform itself into a pure electrified brand is less than 30 months.

For Lynk & Co, there are brands, technologies, plans, and problems: First, all auto companies are now making every effort to transform into pure electric vehicles, leaving the survival time and window of opportunity for hybrid vehicles to remain. how much is left;

Second, Chinese consumers are more unfamiliar with hybrids than they are familiar with. How to translate this set of technical language in vernacular and impress consumers; thirdly, Chinese brands are very introverted in hybrids, so how can Lynk & Co make the most of it? superior.

The first question number can be answered.

According to the plan in the “Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0” of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, the total proportion of hybrid vehicles (including energy-saving vehicles, PHEVs and EREVs) in future new energy vehicles will reach 2025/2030/2035. will increase from 2.5% in 2020 to 42.0%/47.8%/52.5%.

According to this calculation, there will be more than 16 times growth space for hybrid vehicles in the five years from 2020 to 2025, and an important market with a scale of nearly 3 million units per year will be formed. This is an opportunity for Chinese brands to hybridize and also Lynk & Co. Opportunity for a second entrepreneurship.

The second question is left to the marketing team to answer.

The current information output methods, such as “Lynk E-Motive”, “Lynk E-Motive”, “Trendy Hybrid” and “DHT Pro”, may be different from other automakers at first glance. Insufficient, or the granularity is too coarse, and the professional verticality is too deep, which virtually raises the technical threshold for screening consumers.

Especially considering that the average age of Lynk & Co car owners is 32.3 years old, and the post-90s generation accounts for about 71% of users, their patience is not so good, and the way of outputting information can be more straightforward.

The third question is the most difficult to answer.

Since BYD released the DM-i super hybrid platform in January 2021, first-tier Chinese brands such as Great Wall, GAC, Changan, and Chery have successively entered the market and launched their own new-generation hybrid systems. The product supply is very rich: BYD destroyers, Han DMi, Wei brand Mocha DHT-PHEV, Changan UNI-K, GAC Trumpchi GS8, etc.

This is the pressure on the one hand. On the other hand, the ideals of the new car-making forces, Huawei Wenjie, and Jinconsailis are also relying on hybrids to conquer the world and occupy a certain market share.

Some people will say that the new forces are taking the route of adding programs and hybrid vehicles, which is different from Chinese brands, but the basis for raising this question is a certain understanding of automotive technology. In the eyes of ordinary consumers who just want to simply buy a scooter , there is no difference between the two.

energy production?

In addition to hybrid technology, Lynk & Co also released The Next Day, a concept car representing the brand’s second-generation design language, a hybrid four-door GT model.

Unlike the first-generation design language aimed at the night scene of the city, the inspiration for the second-generation design language of Lynk & Co is the sunrise. According to this way, the inspiration of the third generation should come from the noon, the kind of dazzling sunlight.

This concept car has three highlights: first, the whole car is painted with gradient paint, which is painted by hand by world-renowned technicians; second, the roof is made of an integrated piece of glass to create a black diamond feel; third, the four doors are opened All are presented in the form of gull-wing doors, which doubles the coolness.

The more advanced place is that the concept car uses design ingenuity to hide configuration and hardware, such as stretchable technology belts and active rear spoilers. This is similar to the “ShyTech” invisible innovation technology advocated by BMW. The advantage is to make the appearance look more concise and reduce unnecessary air resistance.

The reason why this Lynk & Co concept car is well received is that it respects my eyes first, and my IQ second. There are no bells and whistles, no eye-catching lidar, no cold mecha designs that follow the trend, and no inexplicable self-proclaimed “automobile robot”.

There is a point of view that the Lynk & Co concept car The Next Day is somewhat similar to the Polestar Precept concept car that is also owned by Geely Group and also from Europe.

An industry insider who has been concerned about design for a long time said that Lynk & Co and Polestar are completely opposite in design direction. Polestar requires very simple lines and cannot have more than one, while Lynk & Co prefers particularly complex lines, which converge horizontally, vertically and diagonally. some point. The color is very plain, and Lynk & Co’s love is changeable and bursting.

write at the end

Lynk & Co is not a new player who smears the Chinese market, but an old friend who has accumulated 700,000 users. According to the trend of the most utilitarian script, Lynk & Co can completely announce the transition to pure electric on its 6th birthday, highly adapt to the current context where pure circuit lines occupy the absolute mainstream of public opinion, and enjoy the dividends of the times.

But Lynk & Co didn’t do this, and instead stubbornly went to the dark on the slightly lonely road of hybridization. This is because Lynk & Co wanted to build a complex smart car, not a simple electric car. There is no difference between the two. equal sign. Manufacturers who specialize in electric vehicles are actually very aware of this fact, but they are unwilling or afraid to admit it as frankly as Lynk & Co.

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