Volvo Cars will become the exclusive distributor of Lynk & Co cars in Europe from January 2027 and run the brand’s commercial operations in the region, the company said on Thursday.
Volvo will sell Lynk & Co cars through its own retailers and service them through its own network, taking over a European business that Lynk & Co has run since 2020 through online subscriptions and city-centre “clubs.”
Lynk & Co keeps the design, development and certification of its cars inside Geely Auto Group.
“This agreement enables Volvo Cars and our retail partners to reach more customers with a broader and differentiated portfolio of cars and through increased sales and service opportunities,” said Erik Severinson, Chief Commercial Officer of Volvo Cars.
The Lynk & Co business at Volvo will be led by Martin Persson, reporting to Severinson.
From Shareholder to Distributor
The agreement completes a reversal of Volvo’s relationship with a brand it helped found.
Volvo held 30% of Lynk & Co from its 2017 formation, alongside Geely Auto at 50% and Geely Holding at 20%, until it sold the stake to Zeekr for 5.4 billion yuan (about SEK 8 billion) in a deal that closed on February 14, 2025, part of a Geely Holding restructuring that left Zeekr with 51% of Lynk & Co and Geely Auto with 49%.
Volvo said then that it would “continue to focus on operational collaborations with Lynk & Co in selected markets where there is a strategic benefit for both companies.”
Thirteen months later it signed the March memorandum, and six months after that it has the contract.
Volvo goes from part-owner of the company to operator of its European sales, a tighter commercial tie than the shareholding gave it, on a brand whose cars share Geely architecture with Volvo’s own: the 01 on the CMA platform and Drive-E engines of the XC40, the 02 on SEA2 beside the EX30, the 08 on CMA Evo beside the XC70.
The two brands were already sold together at selected Volvo retailers in seven European markets, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Italy, an arrangement Volvo’s Thursday statement describes as “long-standing.”
The platform kinship goes back to CEVT, the Gothenburg engineering centre Geely set up in 2013 to develop the CMA architecture for Volvo, Geely and the new brand, and since renamed Zeekr Technology Europe.
Volvo has said its future models move to its own SPA2 and SPA3 platforms, which is the differentiation Thursday’s release refers to.
Lynk & Co Europe’s chief, Nicolas López Appelgren, had begun replacing online-only sales with dealers after taking over in late 2024, following a year in which the 01 was withdrawn from sale over EU cybersecurity rules and then returned.
What Volvo Will Sell
The European lineup under the March memorandum was the 01 and 08 plug-in hybrids and the 02 battery-electric, per a Geely Auto spokesperson, with German prices from €35,995 to €55,995.
Volvo’s statement does not list models, but Lynk & Co’s Chinese announcement of the same agreement pictures those three cars, and it adds two points the English text leaves implicit: the deal “does not involve any change to the equity structure,” and Geely Auto Group “will continue to lead” not only design, R&D and certification but the brand’s “overall brand strategy” worldwide.
Volvo runs Lynk & Co’s European sales and marketing. It does not run the brand. All three are built in China. The 02, as a battery-electric car, carries the EU’s countervailing duty on Chinese EVs at Geely’s rate of 18.8% on top of the 10% standard tariff, while the hybrids carry only the 10%, which is why the 08 has become the brand’s lead product in Europe.
Volvo describes Lynk & Co as “a true complement” to its own range with “clear brand differentiation,” and says the deal will “increase the sales and servicing business for Volvo Cars’ retail partners.”
The unstated point is that Volvo gains a China-built product line for its European dealers without product investment, and Lynk & Co gains the several hundred retail and service points it could not build on its own.
The Geely Pattern
The deal is the third case in a year of a Geely Holding brand selling Chinese-built cars through a Western-badged network the group already owns. Lotus put its Wuhan-built Eletre into Canada through Lotus dealers in July.
Polestar reintroduced its China-built Polestar 2 to Canada in June through its own Spaces.
Lynk & Co now goes through Volvo’s European dealers. Since Håkan Samuelsson returned as Volvo’s Chief Executive Officer in 2025, the company has drawn closer to Geely’s brands, suppliers and technology, and Thursday’s agreement is the most visible result.
The arrangement gives Volvo no balance-sheet exposure to Lynk & Co and gives Lynk & Co a retail network it could not build on its own. Samuelsson’s stated position is synergies without badge engineering, and the deal, alongside the XC70’s kinship with the 08, is where that line will be tested.
Lynk & Co’s operations outside Europe, including a planned entry into Brazil this year, stay with Geely Auto.
Geely Auto’s move to take Zeekr private, if completed, would bring Lynk & Co’s ownership fully inside Geely Auto.
