The conflicting priorities of off-road performance and modern safety rating regimes will prevent the new INEOS Grenadier from coming with a five-star crash rating when it debuts in late 2021.
But that doesn’t mean it’s an off-roader for luddites.
CEO of the start-up off-road car-maker INEOS Austomotive, Dirk Heilmann, put the kybosh on the new British 4x4’s chance of getting a top Euro NCAP score when quizzed as part of carsales’ exclusive local interview ahead of the Grenadier’s debut this week but he also hinted at some online maintenance smarts.
According to Heilmann, it’s not the structure of the body-on-frame Grenadier off-roader that will be the sticking point, rather driver aids.
“A five-star safety rating is particularly difficult for vehicles if you want to keep them simple… It’s not about crash performance anymore. It’s about all the driver assist [systems] and all the nonsense that keeps telling you if you’re going off-road.
“So, we will not have a five-star rating but we will have a vehicle that crashes very well and rolls very well. And if you want to roll well, and don’t ‘explode’, you will have to have compromises in other features,” Heilmann opined.
The Grenadier is new from the ground up and features a body-on-frame structure and powertrain developed in conjunction with Magna Steyr, BMW and Italian tractor specialist, Carraro.
Heilmann contends the Grenadier will be safe, but it will built with off-road durability paramount and not feature the driver safety aids required to tick the boxes for five stars, such as automated lane-keeping and braking.
“You can’t build a completely ‘squishy’ car if you want to go off-road and have a hardworking tool. So, it’s really balancing that quite carefully to, of course, comply with all the safety regulations and have a safe car – and that is an absolute priority…
“That’s where the compromise is and that’s where a lot of hard work went into getting to where we are now,” he explained.
For the same reason, the Grenadier will eschew some of the smart off-road driving features brands like Range Rover have pioneered, including a ‘see-through’ front-end.
“It’s a fine line… before it becomes [like] a computer game so… Of course, you need connectivity – it’s absolutely key… [But] I think that [see-through front-end, 360-degree camera, etc] is one step too far.
“A lot of debate went into this and it’s certainly something that we might think of in future, but at the moment we said rear-view camera only.”
That doesn’t mean the INEOS Grenadier will lack innovation. Heilmann hints this may come in the area of maintenance.
“Having a state-of-the-art vehicle with state-of-the-art technology [means it] will come with electronics. But that is not a problem, in my mind, if you get durable and reliable technology,” Heilmann explains.
“And in the 21st century, anyway, maintenance is not necessarily hammer and spanner action…
“We don’t have a legacy, we don’t have the service network to protect. We can build something that is fit for purpose and actually helps you [with maintenance] in the field.
“So rather than looking at your hammer and spanner and thinking ‘What do I do with this now?’ it’s actually being available with modern technology to help you out. And if nothing helps, to literally get you out.”