In October 2022 it was revealed that Zeekr would be spun out of the wider Geely group to operate as an independent brand.

Having leveraged the platform used by sister brand Lynk & Co from launch, one of the challenges has been creating a separate identity for Zeekr. While the brand is unlikely to diverge massively from the look and feel it has already been building, the separation from Geely is sure to open the door for new opportunities moving forward.

To discuss the implications for the design team and get a sense of how future vehicles may look, we sat down with Geely design boss Stefan Sielaff, who also heads up design at Zeekr. 

Car Design News: Geely is a Chinese brand of course but, here in the heart of Gothenburg, does it feel that way? 

Stefan Sielaff: Based on where we are in Europe, just a couple of hours away from London and so on, we are able to exchange within Europe very quickly. It could sound like we are sat over here in our Scandinavian ivory tower and just throwing some stuff over the fence to China, but we have daily exchanges with the project managers in China and we are super connected. We have a weekly exchange with the CEO, virtual reality reviews and there is an extremely high frequency of interaction between us. We feel that we are almost in China and acting together. We feel every day as though we are part of the Chinese community.