- Ineos Grenadier proceeds through several stages of real-world testing, completing mountain trials in Austria.
- Ineos has purchased a Mercedes-Benz factory in France a few months ago to produce the SUV and pickup.
- Production is now expected to start in July 2022 at the latest, due to delays prompted by the pandemic.
The Ineos Grenadier is working its way to production, itching to compete with the Land Rover Defender for sales and ruggedness, and it has just completed the latest phase of off-road testing on the trails of the Schöckl mountain in Austria, near Magna Steyr’s headquarters. These mountain trails are known as one of the toughest 4×4 testing grounds in Europe and the world, so it was quite fitting that the Grenadier would get a serious workout in Magna Steyr’s backyard.
To underscore the scope of the Grenadier engineering effort, Ineos says that it plans to have no fewer than 130 second-phase prototypes cover 1.8 million kilometers in various extreme environments around the world.
“We’ve made great strides since the very early versions of the Grenadier I drove a year ago,” said Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “The Schöckl is a proper challenge for any 4X4. Today was a real test for our prototypes, and they came through very well. There is still work to do, but I am confident that the Grenadier will do the job we have developed it for.”
A few months ago the Grenadier completed cold weather testing in northern Sweden. The next phase of testing, as you may have guessed, will see the Grenadier travel to Death Valley, California, as well as to several locations in the Middle East.
“Reaching this important development milestone is a great step forward for the project,” said Dirk Heilmann, CEO of Ineos Automotive. “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.”
The sport utility and pickup truck versions of the Grenadier will be built in France at a former Mercedes-Benz plant that Ineos bought in December 2020. At the time of the plant’s purchase Ineos planned to begin production in late 2021, with BMW gas and diesel engines expected to power the 4×4, but due to pressures of the pandemic the timing has slipped by a few months. The project still appears to be moving along at a pretty fast pace for a company new to automotive manufacturing. Project Grenadier has the backing of a billion-dollar petrochemical giant Ineos behind it, so it bypassed the treacherous phase of raising capital—Ineos can afford to take a chance on a 4×4 and doesn’t need to convince outsiders of its project’s commercial appeal.
Still, sales to private parties and commercial buyers are not too far off if all goes according to plan, which would make Ineos something of a unicorn in recent automotive history: A new and self-funded automaker that’s not promising an EV or a supercar of any sort, but rather a rugged 4×4 that starts around £40,000, or $53,500. So it won’t land far from new Land Rover Defender money.
The company has indicated earlier that it will need to sell about 25,000 Grenadiers a year to be profitable, which may depend more on its sales and service operations rather than the quality of the SUV and truck. It’s certainly possible to engineer and build a great vehicle, but marketing and selling it to real people may turn out to be the biggest challenge, as a number of startups and longtime industry players alike have discovered over the past decade.
Will the Grenadier be able to attract buyers of the previous-gen Defender? Let us know in the comments below.
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