Six years have passed since the project made its debut. It was 20 October 2016 when Lynk & Co first introduced itself to the world, with one objective: to propose a new approach to shared mobility — accessible, flexible. Almost a challenge, a way to reinvent how cars are bought, owned and used. "We wanted to offer access to mobility that was simpler, more flexible and competitively priced," explains Alain Visser, founder and CEO of Lynk & Co.

The most popular of the options on offer (the formula chosen by almost 90% of members) is the monthly membership, a bit like Netflix — a comparison often used to describe the flexibility of the service. In practice, for a monthly fee of 500 euros, all-inclusive (insurance, maintenance, roadside assistance, road tax, etc.), you can use a hybrid car with the added option of sharing it with the Lynk & Co community, a way to bring the monthly subscription cost down even further.

Lynk & Co: clubs instead of car dealerships

"Six years ago, we started with very few people," Visser tells us, "a simple structure, but a clear project: no dealerships, but clubs, located above all in the heart of the city — spaces to inhabit, to work in, to have a herbal tea, listen to good music, buy items from brands 'that share our same values'," Visser emphasises: sustainability, but also circular economy.

We met Alain Visser in Rome, at the central Via del Corso 265, in a space that carries the scent of post-industrial reclamation — almost an urban oasis, the result of a conservation-led intervention designed in collaboration with the Swedish studio New Order Arkitektur: floors of reclaimed wood, high ceilings, fabrics on the walls, comfortable sofas, a ping-pong table. And, crucially, not so much as a shadow of a car — that Lynk & Co 01, a hybrid crossover based on the mechanics of the Volvo XC40, which lies at the heart of the service on offer: hybrid, fully loaded, only two colours (black or blue), connected. If you wish, you can buy it outright, but that is not the "smartest" choice.

We started from the idea that mobility can be improved

In short, a club for friends, a place to gather around the bar counter for a chat. Because here the only idea of mobility — or at least the prevailing one — is shared mobility: a monthly subscription with no ownership ties. "Rome is a special city and opening our new Club is a concrete step forward for our growing community in Italy," Alain Visser emphasises, "a centre for all those who are ready to explore mobility that goes beyond the traditional boundaries set by the old automotive industry."

Belgian, with a Master of Science from the University of Antwerp and an MBS from Duke University in North Carolina, more than thirty years spent in the automotive world where he held significant managerial roles at major car groups (Volvo, Opel, Ford), Alain Visser — named one of the ten most influential CMOs in the world by Forbes — founded Lynk & Co by drawing on his previous experience and moving away from the traditional automotive model. His is a curious mind, open to the future. A visionary, but with a sense of the concrete. That is why, in our interview, we decided to play a "game": to have him comment on some of the key words that define the new mobility, present and future. Here is how it went.

Sustainability
Finally!

Autonomous vehicles
The real change, far more so than electrification. When? On timing I could be wrong — it has happened before, when I predicted that car electrification would have already happened 10 years ago. The technology is almost ready, very little is missing. The most complex part concerns legislation and infrastructure, especially in Europe. What is certain is that over the next 20–30 years the whole vision of the car will change radically; all it will take is an app to have a vehicle at your disposal.

Smart city
Together with the autonomous car, I believe the concept of smart city is a complex one — here too, mainly for legislative and infrastructure reasons. It will take a long time; politics is often slower than the automotive industry.

Electric mobility
It is an important change, but not a great change. It is simply a car with something new under the bonnet. A certainly more sustainable car, a better technology, but it is not as radical a revolution as it appears.

Batteries
I think today's batteries will be considered in 10 years as something very outdated. Their evolution will be very rapid — in terms of efficiency, size, weight will be drastically reduced, and what will change above all is charging speed and recyclability. The environmental and ethical aspects regarding the extraction of raw materials will also evolve quickly. I believe technological progress and sustainability will end up converging, finding the right balance between ethics and technology.

Big data
Certainly an area of major growth. It is not a given that all the implications will be positive. But if everything goes in the right direction, to make better products the industry will increasingly need to hold customers' data. Having access to data, combined with the potential of artificial intelligence, will allow the industry to create added value for customers themselves, providing ever better services that more closely meet their needs. It has become the new normal — essential, I would say. And it is probably one of the biggest problems the automotive industry has yet to solve, as it still does not have ideal access to this data.

Internet of Things
I am following this aspect with curiosity, as I am other developments such as the metaverse. Frankly, I don't know whether they truly represent a priority. We are still human beings who enjoy physical contact with other human beings, and that has to be taken into account. In that sense, the Internet of Things is almost a contradiction.

5G and connected vehicles
Connected vehicles today are like airbags 30 years ago. Connectivity is now essential — you can have the best car in the world but without connectivity it's worthless. As for 5G, I don't think people make too much distinction between 2G, 3G, 4G or anything else. What is certainly becoming progressively more important to people is data accessibility and the speed at which it happens — people now want everything to always be available and instantly.

Urban Air Mobility
When you think about it, it sounds like a science fiction film. I almost hope it doesn't happen, because I think that if our roads are already polluted by traffic today, it would be even worse if we did the same to the sky. So I trust it will remain a future option for a long time yet. In the meantime, we can improve mobility on our roads, which I believe is absolutely possible, also thanks to autonomous driving. A scenario in which people no longer necessarily have to buy a car — they can simply use one when they need it. I picture different, better cities, ones that can even do without flying drones.

Hydrogen
Still far too inefficient — hydrogen could probably play a more significant role for other means of transport, such as trains, ships or aircraft. But not for the car, I don't think.

Circular economy
I believe the circular economy is very closely linked to sustainability — it is very positive that more and more companies are considering the entire life cycle rather than just one part of it. I think it is a very important topic for moving towards a more advanced industrial model, one based not only on production but increasingly on the sustainability of processes.

Sharing
What we are certainly seeing is a global trend, a trend connected to the reduction of consumption, driven by the fact that people are increasingly less interested in owning and more interested in using. This is why the experience of use is becoming more important than the experience of ownership. And a positive experience in turn generates sharing. On average, a car is used for only 4% of the time and for the rest it sits parked. Radical steps are needed to make mobility more sustainable. Sharing makes it possible to share resources and reduce the total number of cars occupying the roads. In this way mobility can become accessible to more people, with a consequent reduction in parking and traffic.

Future
I have largely tried to answer this in the previous questions. As for Lynk & Co, despite being the first in Italy, the Rome Club will not remain the only one for long. The Milan Club, in fact, will open its doors to the public in late 2022. In a world moving ever further away from the concept of ownership, Lynk & Co offers drivers — even without owning one — a high-performance, technologically advanced car that respects the environment. We want to express more and more that sense of freedom of choice that modern travellers are asking for. After 100 years of a sector that never changed, it was time to offer something different.