Wednesday 12th May 2021

Ineos Grenadier production pushed back

Ineos Automotive owns a factory already, but testing delays mean it has no car to build in it just yet

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The last time we caught up with the Ineos Grenadier, the manufacturer had just announced the acquisition of a former Mercedes-Benz production facility in France. Naturally it was disappointing to learnt that the rugged off-roader would not be built in the UK - but nevertheless it was another crucial step forward in plans to bring the car to market in early 2022.

Somewhat predictably, there has been some stumbling since then. The firm confirmed today that while prototypes of the Grenadier have completed a gruelling phase of dynamic testing in the Schöckl mountains, 'unavoidable delays through 2020' have meant a revision of the manufacturing timetable.

Dirk Heilmann, CEO of Ineos Automotive, said: "Reaching this important development milestone is a great step forward for the project. We only have one opportunity to get this right and our quality and performance targets for the Grenadier remain paramount. We won't cut corners. After today's very positive results we are on track to reach our targets and to allow the start of production in July next year at the latest."

Disappointing for anyone ticking off the days to launch, but the team remain upbeat about the testing programme, which will now see more than 130 second-phase prototypes accumulate 1.8m kilometres of gruelling evaluation. Next up, hot weather testing in Death Valley and on the sand dunes in the Middle East. Nice work if you can get it.

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• Ineos Grenadier officially unveiled

[yme402]

The nose doesn’t look quite right, but the rest of the car looks great.
I hope it does well and if priced correctly and with decent reliability it probably will. Having a dealer service network could be an issue though.

[thatdude]

yme402 said:

The nose doesn’t look quite right, but the rest of the car looks great.
I hope it does well and if priced correctly and with decent reliability it probably will. Having a dealer service network could be an issue though.

I suspect that the sort of people it's aimed at (emergency services etc) means they'll have deeply considered parts back-up. The engine, being BMW units, means there'll be plenty of parts for that in terms of relacing faulty items as well as servicing consumables so that;s good at least.

[Buster138]

Still hurts that it is not made in UK when that was such a strong part of its identity. They have done a fairly good job of updating the design, I wonder how much they had to change the crash structure. Would imagine a lot of effort needed.

Still not sold on the concept and business model. Sure there are much better workhorses out there AND if want to buy the brand the new Defender does the job alot better!

[Pica-Pica]

thatdude said:

I suspect that the sort of people it's aimed at (emergency services etc) means they'll have deeply considered parts back-up. The engine, being BMW units, means there'll be plenty of parts for that in terms of relacing faulty items as well as servicing consumables so that;s good at least.

I understand that the utility companies bought up many of the EU5 spec Defenders, as EU6 approached.

[loudlashadjuster]

Looks more and more like a Mahindra or something every time i see it.

[romac]

Buster138 said:

Still hurts that it is not made in UK when that was such a strong part of its identity. They have done a fairly good job of updating the design, I wonder how much they had to change the crash structure. Would imagine a lot of effort needed.

Still not sold on the concept and business model. Sure there are much better workhorses out there AND if want to buy the brand the new Defender does the job alot better!

There is nothing "carried over" from Land Rover's old Defender apart from a similar look (also similar to the G-Wagen and a bunch of others). It is INEOS' own new design of chassis, body, drive chain etc.

But yeah, shame it's not being built in the UK.

[Biggriff]

Built in it…. Or Build in it.

[The spinner of plates]

Chris Goffey looks well.

[CooperS]

I still don't understand how its different enough from the Defender not to be an infringement.

[the_hood]

The spinner of plates said:

Chris Goffey looks well.

Couldn't quite work out who the guy looked like.

[Andy665]

CooperS said:

I still don't understand how its different enough from the Defender not to be an infringement.

Easy, JLR no longer held any design copyright, it had expired

[NGK210]

The schadenfreude is strong in this one.

[Andeh1]

The guy is clueless. The price he will need to charge for them to make money will make a new JLR Defender look like a bargain.

He will have no scale of economy, no weight of negotiation, no supplier contacts, a new team, no experience with reliability, quality control or DFMEA/PFMEAs etc. No support network, online only sales. Then once in place the MPG will be st, the emissions average, the ride comfort non existent, NVH & basic usability will be poor....then he will need to charge £60k to sell it.


......soon to be cancelled. Watch this space.

Edited by Andeh1 on Wednesday 12th May 18:37

[anonymous-user]

Andeh1 said:

The guy is clueless. The price he will need to charge for them to make money will make a new JLR Defender look like a bargain.

He will have no scale of economy, no weight of negotiation, no supplier contacts, a new team, no experience with reliability, quality control or DFMEA/PFMEAs etc. No support network, online only sales. Then once in place the MPG will be st, the emissions average, the ride comfort non existent, NVH & basic usability will be poor....then he will need to charge £60k to sell it.


......soon to be cancelled. Watch this space.

Edited by Andeh1 on Wednesday 12th May 18:37

And unless they get the PHEV out the door ASAP, the vehicle will attract enough sales tax to put even the wealthest collector off !

[W12AAM]

Yeah whatever, Mr Ratcliffe...

This car had so much promise at its early conception...and above all was going to be British built !...A real British built Land Rover replacement !

Granted - He's not a charity; But with his immense wealth, it seems like a real lost opportunity to have had a British owned car company, building a car in the UK (His tax advantages basing himself in Monaco could have probably off-set some costs, surely?)

Buying this has no patriotic advantage than buying the real thing...A Land Rover..even if its a Slovakian built Defender.

I hope he feels some shame.... But probably not...and that's why i've lost interest in this car & hope the French workers give him grief with their unflexible / union biased working practices

[VanquishRider]

It is not aimed at mainland Europe.

British military now buys South African built Toyota's for SF work and and this will be aimed at all those militaries and emergency services that need something like this.

Third world countries will be running non Euro 4, 5, & 6 cars for decades to come. So this will appeal to a certain market. Doubt that includes Welsh sheep farmers.

[Chlorothalonil]

CooperS said:

I still don't understand how its different enough from the Defender not to be an infringement.

Of what?

[anonymous-user]

VanquishRider said:

It is not aimed at mainland Europe.

British military now buys South African built Toyota's for SF work and and this will be aimed at all those militaries and emergency services that need something like this.

Third world countries will be running non Euro 4, 5, & 6 cars for decades to come. So this will appeal to a certain market. Doubt that includes Welsh sheep farmers.

ah great, and will those third world countries be able to service and repair a cutting edge BMW high pressure diesel engine?

That's still the problem with this car, it's trying to be a car from the 1960's but needs to be legal to sell in the 2020's.........

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Max_Torque said:

Andeh1 said:

The guy is clueless. The price he will need to charge for them to make money will make a new JLR Defender look like a bargain.

He will have no scale of economy, no weight of negotiation, no supplier contacts, a new team, no experience with reliability, quality control or DFMEA/PFMEAs etc. No support network, online only sales. Then once in place the MPG will be st, the emissions average, the ride comfort non existent, NVH & basic usability will be poor....then he will need to charge £60k to sell it.


......soon to be cancelled. Watch this space.

Edited by Andeh1 on Wednesday 12th May 18:37

And unless they get the PHEV out the door ASAP, the vehicle will attract enough sales tax to put even the wealthest collector off !

A question though... Does all that matter if his target market is commercial and akin to JCB and Caterpillar.

INEOS has a big internal market potentially.

If it's sold as a unimog light with the option of private buyers able to buy them at over the odds... Does that work?

[Motorsport3]

When they finish with the Fender copy maybe they can take the rights from the S1 Elise and start producing that British icon.