Grenadier promises to build electric four-wheel-drive

Breakthrough brand taking aim at Toyota and Land Rover promises to build the benchmark electric four-wheel-drive.

2024 Ineos Grenadier.

The soon-to-arrive Ineos Grenadier off-roader will soon have an electric sibling with a more advanced skateboard-style platform and a 400V electric system – and up to three electric motors.

Set to hit the market in 2026, the Ineos EV will be slightly smaller than the Grenadier – named after the London pub it was conceived in – that marks the start of a new off-road focused brand set to spawn larger and smaller options as well as a four-door ute version of the Grenadier, the ute arriving late this year.

Ineos plans to make an electric version of the Grenadier.

“We’re sort of well on with that project,” says Ineos chairman and CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe of the upcoming EV. “That will be fully electric, range of 400km, it’ll be a bit smaller than the Grenadier, but it’ll look like a younger version.”

Ratcliffe says the company – which owns one-third of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team – recently decided on a name for the Ineos EV, something he says is “clever”.

He also said it was undergoing final design sign-off – saying the clay model is “pretty much there” – before beginning a rigorous development program later this year.

The Ineos Grenadier promises to be one of the most capable four-wheel-drives on sale.

While Ineos was adamant the Grenadier had to be a traditional off-roader – right down to its live axles front and rear and old school low range gear selector – the EV is shaping up to be a very different 4WD beast.

Rather than utilise the rugged ladder frame architecture of the Grenadier, the Ineos EV will ride on a bespoke skateboard-style platform.

That means independent suspension front and rear – and a unique architecture, according to Ineos COO Hans-Peter Pessler.

The Grenadier has been tested thoroughly in Australia.

“We decided to go our own way with the skateboard,” he says. “There will be no carry-over [with Grenadier].”

That will naturally mean a step down from the superb off-road performance of the Grenadier.

But Ratcliffe says it will still be able to complete the legendary Shoeckl track in Austria, where Mercedes-Benz famously develops its boxy G-Wagen (along with the G-Wagen the Grenadier was inspired by the Land Rover Defender).

And Pessler says it will have class leading capability.

The Grenadier is similar in appearance – and intent – to the Land Rover Defender.

“We want to be best in [4WD] class electric,” he says. “But we will not beat this Grenadier (off-road) … if we’re talking about 100 per cent off-roading for this Gre nadier, we will go 75-80 per cent off-roading [for the EV].”

Part of the problem is weight.

The construction of the rock solid frame for the Grenadier makes it a hefty 2.6-tonne plus four-wheel drive – and Pessler says that would increase with an EV.

“If you go into heavy, heavy, heavy off-road all of a sudden the car will get very expensive and nobody … will use it (off-road).

Ineos Grenadier models will be highly customisable.

“We want to be best in class off-road … but we do not want an electric war tank.”

As for the electrical components, Ineos will source motors from established manufacturers, as it did with the engines in the Grenadier.

But Ratcliffe says the aim is for the best in the business.

“I’d like the drivetrain equivalent of the BMW engine that we’ve got to be as world class as the petrol and diesel engine we’ve got for Grenadier,” he says.

One thing Ineos hasn’t yet settled on is how many motors its first electric 4WD will have.

It is currently considering a three-motor setup that would use a single motor to power both front wheels and individual motors for each rear wheel.

The Ineos Grenadier goes on sale locally in 2023.

Having individual motors for the back wheels allows electronic controls that would effectively give it the functionality of a locked differential (so that both wheels spin at exactly the same speed), for added traction.

However, with the drive split to each rear wheel it means that if one wheel loses traction then only half the available drive power/torque is available because the other motor is temporarily rendered useless.

Pessler the company is “not decided” which way to go but that it will make the decision soon.