Lynk & Co’s philosophy is, in many ways, the diametrical opposite of gearheadom: they feel that people who will want their cars won’t care about what’s under the hood, how fast it will go, or even if they’ll actually own the car or not. , so there won’t be, say, a 2018 Lynk & Co 01. Oh good. That won’t make things confusing.

In an interview with, Lynk & Co CEO Alain Visser outlined some of the brand’s new ideas, and his desire to shake things up:

“That’s boring. My strong belief was, and still is, if you create a new car brand, do things differently.”

For Visser, ‘differently’ means a number of things, including the abandonment of model years. The AN article expands on this by saying:

Visser said he’s abandoning the idea of model years — colors will be launched based on seasons, as in the fashion industry.

Which really brings up more questions than it answers. If the color you want isn’t available in a given ‘season,’ I guess you wait until a new season comes with new colors? Will technical changes to the car be made ‘seasonally,’ or just as needed?

I predict that while Lynk & Co may be able to ignore model years, if and when these cars end up on the used market, people will be referring to them by year no matter what, because the age of a car actually is a very important piece of information to have.

Of course, based on what Visser was saying about , the model year may not matter so much. Again, from AN:

Visser believes younger buyers will like the subscription model, which differs from a lease because it requires no down payment. Lynk & CO will advertise only the subscription price, but customers who want to buy or get a traditional lease will have those options.

So, while you can still buy or lease, Lynk & Co will only advertise the “subscription price?” Does that mean that upgrades to newer models will be available, like it is with phones? And what happens to the older models when users upgrade? Will those be offered for sale?

Lynk & Co, like Tesla, will sell – or, um, provide car subscriptions? – to consumers directly, via small ‘storefront’ locations, with cars being delivered to, um, subscribers, and picked up and returned for servicing. Dealers will still be involved with the servicing aspect, and Lynk & Co is now in talks with their co-owner Volvo’s dealership network to handle this.

The first Lynk & Co car, the 01, will go on sale in China later this year, and come to Europe and America by 2018. Of course, it won’t be a 2018 Lynk & CO 01, but I’ll leave it up to them to figure out what to call it.

Remember, this is the company that wants you to easily share the car you probably won’t really even own:

... and they don’t have a good solution yet for how to keep your personal stuff secured and private in the car.

So, yeah: the Lynk & Co 01 will be a car without a year, one you sort of rent, and can let anyone else sub-lease it from you for a few hours, if you want. Maybe it’s best they’re assuming you won’t care how much HP it has or anything like that, because it’s not even really your car, ever, is it?