The missing Lynk
Lynk & Co, Chinese sister brand to Volvo, moves into motorcycles
As a Chinese-Swedish motor manufacturer, Lynk is interesting enough in itself but even more interestingly, Link & Co have instituted the innovative sales idea of encouraging punters to rent their machines rather than buy them.
Formed by China's Geely and Sweden's Volvo, Lynk & Co have been operational since 2016, when Geely bought the main stake in Qianjiang – a company which owns Benelli. Up until now they have been concentrating on cars, but now and it seems they’re venturing into a new area, creating a motorcycle which looks, so far, very Benelli with Lynk & Co livery. The company are now introducing their first motorcycle, a self branded version of Benelli's TNT 600, as of yet unnamed.
The main market for these machines will be China and this new motorcycle, although initially to buy, may be heading for the rental market, similar to the one which Lynk currently operates with cars.
The scheme for cars works like this: if you are the owner of the car, you can hire it out on a daily or hourly rate and you choose who you lend it to via a rating system. The renter returns it to a prearranged location at the end of the day. This way you can come out with a profit and still have your car - or potentially bike, to get home on.
It is difficult to countenance the thought of lending your precious motorcycle out to a stranger, but it does work, in the main, for other platforms like Air BNB. There, you can have a look at the past reviews and ratings of people who might be renting your property, so that you can get a picture of their credentials before you rent to them – so presumably it would work similarly for renting out your bike.
Another plus point is that many motorcycles just sit in the garage or the drive for a long time, when they could be making money for you.
This new Lynk motorcycle still looks like a test project currently and it will be interesting to see if this vehicle and potentially others down the line, are going to be a successful venture for the company. We shall see how it pans out, but it seems to have been good for them so far with cars.
How would you feel about hiring your motorcycle out? Do the checks currently in place for the car version of this scheme reassure you or would you still prefer to have your bike sitting outside your house waiting patiently for you?
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