Chinese manufacturer Lynk & Co. wants to build cars in America
The Geely-owned automaker is looking to burst into the US market with US-built vehicles.
Chinese automaker Lynk & Co. has a lot of hurdles in its way before it becomes a successful, stable automaker, but its most significant challenge, and perhaps most ambitious plan is to sell its vehicles in the US, something that no other Chinese automaker has yet been able to do.
While Lynk & Co.'s crossover, dubbed the 01, is based on Volvo platform architecture and comes packing a Volvo-derived powertrain, selling Americans on the idea of a Chinese SUV with off-the-wall styling and non-traditional sales and service networks is going to going to be no small task. Perhaps this is why Lynk & Co. is investigating locations for a possible factory in the eastern United States.
The Lynk & Co. 01, billed as the world's most connected car, may end up getting built in the United States.
Lynk & Co.'s sister company, Volvo, is setting up its first American manufacturing facility, slated to open later this year, in Ridgeville, South Carolina. It would certainly make sense for Lynk & Co. to piggyback on that, given the size of the gamble that parent company Geely is making by bringing it here in the first place.
When the 01 debuted in Shanghai last year, the plan was for it only to be offered fully equipped with the color being the only option. According to Automotive News, that may have changed, with the idea now being to allow customers to pick and choose options online for a custom build, which would make setting up manufacturing and supply chains especially complicated.
It will be interesting to see how Lynk & Co.'s grand experiment pans out given Tesla's trouble with direct-to-customer sales coupled with the current political climate, but we're very much looking forward to driving the 01 whenever it makes it stateside.
