ADAS systems are safety features in modern cars that help the driver. They can warn you or even assist with things like speed and lane keeping, but some are required by law.
The idea is that laws are requiring carmakers to add certain safety/driver-assist features. So even if drivers don’t like them, the company has to include them to meet the rules.
An intelligent speed sensor is a feature that checks how fast you’re going and helps you stay within the speed limit. If it’s annoying, the host says there’s a button to mute its alerts.
The head unit is the car’s main screen and control panel for things like music and settings. In this case, it’s where you can turn off the speed alert.
OEM means the company that makes the car in the first place. They decide what systems go into the vehicle and how they work.
Concept
switch off
They’re talking about turning a car feature off. Even though the car maker installs the system, they’re saying it costs money to make it possible to disable it.
INEOS Automotive is the car company behind the INEOS Grenadier. Here, they’re talking about how the business is doing and what updates are coming to their vehicles.
A “model year” is the automaker’s yearly version of a car. “Model year 26” means the newer version they’re selling now, with updates compared to the prior year.
Term
Q1
Q1 is the first three months of the year. They’re using it to compare how sales did this year versus last year.
The Opel Astra is a common everyday car in the compact class, usually as a hatchback or sedan. It’s designed to be practical—easy to live with, with decent space and comfort. It often gets mentioned because it’s a high-volume model used for normal commuting and work driving.
“Grassroots” marketing means getting fans and real owners excited enough to talk about the car themselves. The point here is that word-of-mouth from people who really get the vehicle matters more than just spending on ads.
The “chicken tax” is a US import tax that makes certain trucks cost more to bring in. The CEO is saying it’s been around for decades and it affects how feasible it is to sell vehicles in the US.
A station wagon is a car with extra space behind the back seats for cargo. They’re using it here to talk about which version sells better in certain countries.
Recirculating ball steering is a type of steering system inside the car. It’s commonly used on off-road vehicles because it can handle rough conditions, but it may feel less sharp than other steering types.
The Toyota GT 86 is a small sports car that’s meant to be enjoyable to drive. It focuses more on handling and feel than on being the fastest. People bring it up when they’re talking about cars that are built for driving pleasure.
Lane assist is the car’s system that watches the lane lines and helps you not drift out of your lane. They’re saying they didn’t want it to feel pushy, but it ended up being subtle.
Variable steering gear means the steering “feel” can change depending on how you’re driving. The goal is usually easier turning at low speeds and more confidence when driving normally.
A steering system is the full set of components and control logic that turns the wheels—more than just the steering wheel itself. In modern cars, “new steering system” can imply changes to how the car responds (for example, different assist calibration or control strategy), which is why Calder wants early customer-style feedback.
Forward model planning is basically a company’s long-term roadmap for what car models and updates it will build next. It helps them line up engineering work and production so new versions arrive on schedule.
A platform is the shared “base” that a car is built on. If a company reuses the same platform for multiple models, it can make new cars faster and cheaper.
Special editions are limited or variant versions of a model that typically add distinctive styling, equipment, or capability packages. Automakers use them to refresh interest and target specific buyer needs without launching a completely new model.
Trialmaster X is a special version of the Ineos Grenadier aimed at tougher off-road use. In this quote, the CEO says it’s their most off-road-capable Grenadier for road use.
Car
Fusilier
The Ineos Fusilier is a smaller Ineos model aimed at city life, but still designed to handle rough terrain. The CEO says they paused it because they weren’t sure about the best powertrain, and it originally started as an electric vehicle due to regulations.
This phrase means they weren’t sure what kind of drivetrain to use. For example, whether the car should be fully electric or use an extra system to help it go farther.
A range extender is like a backup generator for an electric car. Instead of relying only on charging stations, it uses a small engine to make electricity when the battery gets low.
Range anxiety is the worry that your electric car won’t have enough battery to get you where you need to go. It’s basically fear of getting stuck because you can’t find a charger in time.
This means the charging stations and the electricity system that powers them. If there aren’t enough chargers—or the power system can’t handle the extra load—EVs are harder to use.
A transitional powertrain is a “bridge” technology. It’s meant to make electric driving more practical right now while the industry moves toward a fully electric future.
A combustion engine component means the system still includes an internal-combustion engine as part of the overall drivetrain. In a range-extender setup, that engine typically doesn’t directly drive the wheels; it generates electricity to keep the electric system operating.
A “ground up” car is one that’s designed completely from the beginning, not just updated. It usually costs a lot more and takes longer, so companies only do it when they really need to.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that can run on electricity and also has a gas engine. You can charge its battery by plugging it in, and then it can drive for a while using only the electric motor.
Term
super hybrid technology
“Super hybrid technology” is a way of describing a more advanced hybrid system than older designs. The goal is usually to make the car feel more like an electric car day-to-day, while still having a way to keep power available for longer trips.
Concept
off-putting
“Off-putting” means something felt unpleasant or discouraging to people. In this case, earlier range-extender cars apparently didn’t feel right to drivers, so they faded away.
They’re talking about working with other companies to use their technology. Instead of building everything from scratch, they negotiate permission to use certain tech in their own cars.
They mean how capable the car is on dirt roads and rough ground. They’re saying it will still be good off-road, but also nicer and more comfortable for everyday city driving.
The Hyundai Grandeur is a bigger, more comfortable sedan than Hyundai’s smaller cars. It’s meant for a smoother, more refined driving experience. It comes up when people talk about how Hyundai is planning different levels of comfort across its lineup.
They’re talking about “brand heritage,” which is basically the story and history behind a company or product. The point is that the car isn’t just a thing you buy—it has a background people can feel connected to.
Topic
pilgrimage
The speaker uses “pilgrimage” to describe how some Ineos customers treat the Grenadier origin site as a destination. It’s a discussion of customer behavior and brand storytelling rather than a technical automotive term.
To localise means making things in the buyer’s country or nearby instead of shipping them from far away. The idea is to support local jobs and make supply more dependable.
A protectionist world is when governments try to protect local businesses. That can mean they prefer buying from domestic suppliers instead of always choosing the cheapest global option.
Mercedes-Benz is a well-known car brand. They’re saying they used a former Mercedes factory, so they could start producing faster because the site and workers were already set up.
“Analogue” here means the car feels more traditional and mechanical, with less reliance on computers and screens. They’re saying their vehicle is especially old-school in how it drives.
An electronic control unit is a car computer that controls a specific job. The speaker is saying their approach uses fewer of these computers than most modern vehicles.
Body-on-frame means the car’s body sits on a separate sturdy frame underneath. Off-road trucks use this because it tends to be tougher for heavy work and rough roads.
Ground clearance is how much space there is between the bottom of the car and the ground. More clearance helps the car avoid hitting obstacles off-road.
“Triple diffs” means the truck has three differentials that help send power to the wheels. That helps it keep traction when the ground is slippery or uneven.
A winch is a motorized cable that can pull a vehicle out of trouble. “Homologated” here means it’s been officially approved, so it’s set up to be used legally and safely rather than being a random aftermarket install.
Concept
handbag rules
The speaker is using a joking phrase to talk about rules and approvals that vehicles have to meet. They’re saying their setup is already close enough that it doesn’t need much changing before it can be used.
A chassis cab is basically the driver’s area plus the main frame, without a permanent cargo box. That makes it easier to build the back into whatever you need—like a work platform or specialized equipment space.
A double-cab layout means there are seats for more than just the driver—usually front and rear passenger seating. They’re saying the front passenger setup stays, while the back gets changed for the mission or job.
The Jeep Renegade is a small SUV made for regular driving, with styling and options that aim to handle rougher roads too. It’s the kind of car people discuss when they want something compact but still want an SUV feel. It’s often mentioned because it’s a middle ground between a normal car and a more rugged vehicle.
LIVE
Welcome to AutoCarMeets, a bonus episode of the AutoCar Podcast brought to you in association
with our sponsor Anderson, makers of design-led premium electric car chargers. Search Anderson
or visit Anderson-EV.com and let them look after you. This week, Steve Cropley and I
are talking to Lynn Calder, Chief Executive Officer at INEOS Automotive, makers of the
Well, I'm delighted to say that Steve and I are joined by Lynn Calder, the CEO of INEOS
Automotive. Lynn, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you very much for having me.
So, Steve and I were talking about three or four weeks ago and he said, I haven't met
Lynn Calder but I would like to because I've just got this press release and in it it says
about a load of ADAS systems and it seems very honest, they're annoying but we have
to fit them.
And the thing is I was wondering whether that sort of stood for your management style
and for the company because it seemed a bit more realistic and straightforward than many.
Yeah, I think that our industry does itself a little bit of a disservice from time to time
by just kind of sitting back and taking a lot of the things that happen in the case of ADAS
features that customers don't want. It's regulation that's driving that and I think
that the industry could do a better job of standing up and saying, we don't need this,
why are we doing it? So let's just be honest about that.
Is there, you know this better than me Matthew, are these systems fairly easy to disable
in the latest car?
Some of them yes, but obviously the regulation is pushing all OEMs towards making them impossible
to disable, which is even more of what drivers don't want.
But yeah, we did for at least this speed, the intelligent speed sensor that tells you
you're speeding, we've got like a one button off now on the head unit where you can just
mute it. So we're trying to make it easier.
Excellent.
But how ridiculous that we, you know as the OEM spend lots of money to install a system
that we have to then spend lots of money making it easy to switch off.
Yeah, it's odd, isn't it? Both the customer and the supplier don't want it.
It's just so odd. There can't be many other things in life where both interested parties
are disadvantaged like this.
Yeah, absolutely.
We were keen to basically get an update on INEOS automotive. You've just updated the
granularity, haven't you? And it continues to spread across the world. I guess we're
looking for a sort of situation report, how things are going. We're looking for trends,
looking for recent progress, that sort of thing. Then we'll go perhaps into some of the forward
planning in a minute.
Yeah, so we're three years into selling in most not all markets. So for example, we're
selling into the US. But yeah, I mean we've just updated the vehicle. As you said, our
new model year 26 that we released to the market to the public this year has got improvements,
optimizations on steering for on-road feel and on air conditioning principally, but with
a few other things as well and some really nice limited additions. So that's been a really
good start to the year. And then Q1 results has been an excellent start to the year for
us. We were 20% up in Q1 26 versus Q1 25. And that's in the face of I think we all understand
a pretty challenged automotive market more generally, which means we're taking market
share, which means that we're making progress. I think as well what's been really good this
kind of year is we've got a lot of repeat customers. So lots of people that bought our first
vehicle are coming back and changing into a model year 26. So that's the first time
that we're really feeling that we're getting quite a decent amount of normal car business,
repeat business where people buy the newer model. And then fleet, I'm sure we'll talk
about that a little bit, but you know, selling into big fleets is something that was always
a really big part of the Grenadier thesis and that's starting to really bear fruit now.
So yeah, we're having a good year, good start to the year.
That's great. And those fleets are presumably people who really need a car with that kind
of sort of versatility and capability. It's not fleet sales in the Voxel Astra.
Predominantly, you're absolutely right. But we do have a little bit. I mean, we had a
really big contract win earlier this year with Hertz, for example. So we are selling into
the rental market. But yeah, not big corporate fleets. We've got some small medium enterprise
type fleets that maybe don't need the full capability. But yeah, for most people it is
going to be a tool for the job, which is why it was part of the original thesis.
You've done, where's the 20% predominantly? You've done quite well in America, haven't you?
Recently, even though it's not as long lasting market or long lived market as the others.
Yeah, so the US in its sort of younger two years with us has been the standout 60% of
our sales into the US. I mean, produce everything in Europe and send 60% of it to the US. And
I still feel that we are barely scratching the surface. I mean, we're going to be at 40
sales points, including Canada and Mexico by the end of 2026. So we are building a decent
footprint. But in terms of the amount of people who have heard of the Grenadier and in terms
of the white space that still exists in the country, we're barely getting started.
What can you do about it to improve the awareness and how many sales outlets is right for a country
of that size?
I think it's a great question, Matt, because how do you accelerate awareness of a new brand?
We're three years into selling, as I've said, and we sit in an echo chamber of knowing and
thinking that everyone knows about the Grenadier because it's all we talk about pretty much
24 hours a day. But most people haven't heard of us and the amount of times that any of
us or any of our customers are in their Grenadier and the amount of times that people will say,
oh, gosh, what's this? Doesn't that look amazing? Tell me about it. And I think that we've cracked
it a bit more when everyone starts saying, well, that's one of those Grenadiers rather
than what's this? And how do you get there fast is a quandary that we deal with every day.
Sure, you can throw lots and of money at it. But I don't think that the amount
of marketing spend that goes into or the amount of marketing money that OEMs plow into the
industry is necessarily all that helpful. I think you have got to build grassroots with
a brand like this. You've got to get people who understand the vehicle and who are passionate
about the vehicle to drive it and talk about it. And I think that's where we're starting to get
some critical mass. Is there a case for making them in America?
There is, Steve. I think that we, I mean, we've talked about that quite a lot over the last
probably two years, given how quickly the US responded to the Grenadier and we had to see
whether that was going to be sustainable or if it was going to be a flash in the pan and
actually it's growing, right? So I think that given the, and it's not about the tariffs that were
announced last year by President Trump because, you know, things can change quite quickly.
You wouldn't make a business decision based on that. But actually, if you look at our
quartermaster pickup, it gets, it kind of has this issue with this archaic chicken tax, which
has nothing to do with President Trump. It's from the 1960s, but it protects pickup trucks.
We're probably the only pickup truck that produces in Europe or certainly one of the very few that
produces in Europe and sells into the US into a 3000000 a year pickup truck market.
I mean, we are not going to be impacting that at all. But that chicken tax is 25%. And I think that
if we were able to, given now that we are making more sales in the US and given things like that,
that chicken tax, it would make sense. But we've got to fill handbag first, right?
So the grand plan is that we've got other models in mind that we would like to produce
and we would produce those in handbag and we would move the Grenadier production to the US.
But the tariffs as they stand, even on the Grenadier, the more conventional SUV, whatever,
Grenadier, you seem to a hurdle that easily, you know.
Easily. We've taken a bit of hit on our profits for sure. I mean, at the beginning of last year,
to take the station wagon into the US was two and a half percent. And it's now 15%.
But at a certain point last year, from the third of April until August was 27 and a half percent.
So we've kind of landed in the middle. It's manageable. Yeah, not the best outcome,
but one that we can handle yet.
Which other markets do well?
So Germany is typically sitting at number two. Australia is sitting at number three.
These are really, really quite large markets for us. Australia being such a huge kind of 4x4,
like a real deep, efficient adult market for a ute. So yeah, we do pretty well in Australia.
Glad to hear it.
Does the quartermaster do better than the station wagon globally? Or where does the balance lie?
No, the station wagon does better. Bearing in mind, though, that the quartermaster is,
I mean, we're about a year and a bit into selling the quartermaster.
So I don't think that we fully understood the market for that yet.
But the station wagon, there's a lot of people that are still just driving.
Or, you know, driving this, we think of it as this tool for a job, as I said earlier,
or this kind of, you know, extreme 4x4 capable vehicle.
But actually, most people are actually taking it to the shops and using it as a family car or a daily driver.
So the station wagon is more popular.
It seems to have the capacity to be like, doesn't it? I mean, you spent some months in one, haven't you?
You used to show up in the office and go on about how good it was.
I think it's great. I really like this sort of honesty and straightforwardness of a car like that.
And it wasn't irritating.
And, you know, I mean, there are things that you go, well, it's got a large turning circle and the steering has got that feel to it.
But there's a reason it has those things. There's a reason it has, you know, the recirculating ball steering for its off-road capability and stuff.
So I think it feels, to me, a bit like a sort of Toyota GT86 in its purpose,
that if you, it is the way it is because it has to do certain things.
Have we had you in a model year 26 yet, Matt?
Yes. Yeah. Steering much improved.
And my understanding was the ADAS is because it's got to have lane key persist.
So it breaks an inside wheel rather than because it can't operate because it's not electrically assisted steering.
Which actually, I mean, the first time I was really worried about that because I hate vehicles.
You know, from the time to time that I have to rent a car that's not a grenadier when I'm in a different country in the world
and it's got that sort of very aggressive lane pool, I hate that.
And I did not want that for our car and I was really concerned about it.
And the first time I test drove, when we were developing the capability for the lane assist and the lane keep,
I was really pleasantly surprised by how kind of subtle it is.
But I mean, I think back to the steering, I mean, recirculating ball, as you say, has got an absolute purpose for our vehicle
and we've taken nothing away from the off-road capability of the vehicle.
But we've put in a variable steering gear, which I think much improves the on-road feel.
And even things like, I mean, we've taken more than a metre, just over a metre, out of the turning circle in model year 26 as well.
So I think it does just have that different feel to the very first model.
But we'll continue optimising, we want to listen to people and continue optimising,
but we're not going to change the steering system, the car is built for a purpose.
And we think that now the on-road feel is perfectly good.
And actually most people that get in it now say, actually it's fixed, it's good, you don't need to do anything else.
Great. Do you get to spend a lot of time in new models and development cars and stuff like that?
Are you deeply involved?
Yeah, I would say, I mean deeply, is that a fair word?
We've got a very strong engineering team and I'm not an automotive engineer,
so I'm not going to be the kind of arbiter of what's right and what's wrong from an engineering perspective.
What I do is ask lots of questions and I think that when I get in development vehicles, I'm in it really as a customer.
When I drive this, these are the things that would annoy the hell out of me,
these are the things that I don't want in this car as a customer.
And so that's kind of my role, I would say.
And if we're launching something new like ADAS features or a new steering system,
I'm going to want to experience it as early as possible and have my input for sure.
What's Jim Ratcliffe like as a customer of the Grenadier?
He presumably drives them a lot and is he critical or is he admiring?
What's his attitude to the vehicle?
That's a really good question, Steve. Jim is customer number one.
He is the absolute epitome of a Grenadier customer.
He has aiming for sure he's built it in his image, but he also knows the kind of car that some people on the planet want
for whatever purpose they may have, whether it's, as I say, going to the shops
or living a really adventurous lifestyle and doing amazing tricks around the world
or whether it be for their job or we've got fire, ambulance, police, border control,
special operations and military that's coming into our atmosphere quite quickly now.
So Jim is both critical and admiring. He's a very balanced customer.
I think he's very proud of what we've achieved and the vehicle that it is and what it's capable of.
But if there's something not right with it, I can assure you I'm going to hear about it.
Interesting.
Can you tell us, just give us a view of what your sort of business life is like.
Do you travel a lot? Do you find yourself in America the whole time?
What's the job? Is it to meet customers or dealers, that sort of thing?
So I think the job is, and I'm so fortunate to say this, the job is really wide-ranging
because it's all of those things. It's meeting customers, it's meeting dealers
because our dealers are our partners. We can't do this on our own.
We can only do this if the people on the front line, so to speak, are really in it with us
and out there flying the flag and selling this car in the way it should be sold
and looking after our customers in the way they should be looked after.
So I take partnership extremely seriously.
But it's also driving the business. How do we grow it?
How do we become a long-term sustainable legacy OEM that outlives all of us?
So it's about how the vision of that transpires and what I do with my team to drive that forward.
And that covers a whole magnitude of things as well.
So I'd say it's customers, partners, team, growth, getting the fundamentals right.
I mean, I talk about that a lot. I think that OEMs are in a really tight spot.
Car manufacturers are in a really tight spot at the moment for a whole bunch of different reasons.
And I think that in those times you've got to get back to basics and run a very tight ship.
You've got to get your cost base right. You've got to look after what really, really matters.
Look after your people. Look after the things that are going to drive this business forward in the future.
Has this been a pretty steep learning curve for you?
Because you didn't come from the car business, did you? You were elsewhere in INEOS, right?
Yeah, I'm an INEOS person rather than a car person.
And I'm in my fourth year and it's still a steep learning curve, Steve.
But is it surprising what you've had to learn or are you enjoying it?
Give us a view of what the surprises have been.
First of all, I need to say I love this job. I have never had such a privilege to be able to do something so radically left field
for someone like me and for INEOS to be doing something so radically left field for the company that it is.
And I think we've all learned, anyone in INEOS that's involved in the Grenadier, so not automotive people,
I think have all learned how much more complicated a car business is than perhaps we ever imagined.
You know, the level of complexity, difficulty, challenge,
and particularly the time of our short life, I think has been particularly tumultuous
in a kind of geopolitical sense and everything that's going on in the world.
Chemicals, oil and gas are all geopolitically and process wise extremely complex businesses to run
and that's what we all have in our bones and our blood.
But I think that you add a lot of things on to that with an automotive business.
And that's been a surprise but also delight because, you know, it means that, I don't know,
lots of people say no two days are the same in a job like mine.
I say no two half hours are the same in a job like mine.
Yeah, we're aware that you've got 38 other things to do today.
Here we are, whatever it is, before nine o'clock in the Grenadier pub
and you've already got your day mapped out in, well, 38 ways, haven't you?
It's amazing.
Give us a view of the way the model range will develop.
We've had some stuff in the magazine about forward model planning and so on,
and there seem to be two avenues.
One is you'll do some more development of the existing platform
and then you'll have a new model at some stage, smaller.
Can you tell us what you can about that?
Yeah, so we're a little more ambitious than that, I would say.
So you're right, on the Grenadier, we're still working on different things
that we can do with that, special editions.
We're just the Mounts of Trialmaster X, which is our most off-road capable Grenadier on the road.
And, you know, I think we're really focused at the moment,
and I'm sure you saw when you came into the Grenadier pub this morning,
our kind of like military vehicle, we're really focused on how we really start to make some proper inroads.
Building on what we've done in Europe, because we've done quite a lot in Europe to date,
but building on that and trying to take it into the UK.
So that's where the Grenadier and Quatermaster focus lies at the moment.
But the ambition for future models is really around now,
and it's what I'm spending a lot of my time doing,
is how do we, in the most cost-effective way and the most accelerated way,
because I don't want to still be talking about our next model in another three years' time,
get something to market.
Now, we paused Fusilier really on the back of powertrain uncertainty in the main part,
because there was, you know, we were...
You usually have been the range extender.
Yeah, exactly.
And actually, the Fusilier, our next model, which is a kind of smaller,
probably more urbane, you know, less rugged vehicle,
but, you know, still very off-road capable vehicle that started this life as pure electric,
because that's what we were going to be forced into from a regulatory perspective.
And, you know, partway through the development of that project, and this was Jim,
you know, I remember sitting very clearly in a board meeting with Jim,
and he's like, why are we doing this?
People do not want this car.
We are doing this.
It's a bit like the ADAS discussion earlier.
We're doing this because we're being forced to.
It's coming from the wrong way round.
It's got to come from the demand and what people want, what customers want.
And I personally talk about this a lot as well.
You know, we as an industry have really forgotten that we are here to service a customer,
rather than a regulator.
And I think that we've got to try and make both work,
but we should start with the customer.
And that's where the range extender then came around,
which is actually this is the technology of the future,
because range extender is an electric vehicle without the range anxiety
and without the requirement to build out the infrastructure and the grid and the electricity.
And where all the electricity comes from, we don't know yet
if everyone is driving electric vehicles.
So it's an absolutely wonderful transitional powertrain.
But of course, we're still in the situation as at today,
that it's got a combustion engine component to it.
And that's not really straightforward from a regulatory perspective either.
So nonetheless, we are extremely excited to be kind of moving forward with that
and some other vehicles as well, one smaller,
because the fuselage is slightly smaller than the ground gear, but not hugely.
It will certainly fit into all underground car parks.
I can promise that.
But we're talking about much smaller and then much bigger with a third row.
And to do that, it will be working with the technology partner.
Right. And that would have luckily a Chinese technology partner?
Not necessarily.
But I think I would just say you would not do another ground up car
explicitly on your right, just because it's such an enormous task.
It's just too expensive, just being plain about it.
We are business people. This is not just about building cars to be fantastic cars.
I joke all the time, although it's not really funny.
And the ground gear is significantly over engineered.
And that is a great thing because the product is fantastic.
And I can sleep very soundly every night knowing that what we're selling is really sound.
But you can't keep building the same way because you would never, ever make a return.
So I think we just got to be...
It's what every other OEM is doing, so why would we be any different?
I must say the range extender avenue is gaining ground really fast, isn't it?
There's been years of plug-in hybrids where the motor does a bit of driving of the wheels and so on.
But the Chinese, among others, are really making a success of range extenders now.
I mean, I've been driving one myself the last few weeks and it's a really successful car.
It's lighter than some and works fine. So it sounds good.
Presumably you've done a lot of experimentation already with that car.
Huge, huge amount of experimentation.
And like you, Steve, I think the really kind of exciting thing about where technology is going at the moment.
And I do agree with you that the Chinese are at the forefront of range extender and super hybrid technology.
Where that's going compared to where that was 10, 15 years ago.
If anyone had driven a range extender car, because there were a few on the market.
If anyone had driven a range extender car then, they didn't exist for after a while because they were off-putting.
And there's nothing like that now.
These are extremely efficient cars with very long ranges that drive extremely nicely.
So it's good to be in the industry at a time when technology like that is coming onto the market and is going to revolutionise it.
When might you have some big model news?
I get that you're going to have some versions and so on, but when's the next big development?
I'm hoping really soon. We are technology sharing.
What that means is that you've got to strike an agreement with someone who owns the technology.
And that's what we're in kind of mature discussions about now.
So I'm hoping soon, but these things take their time and they should because you've got to get it right.
Would the fuselage be the logical?
The fuselage is the next model, yes.
I'm looking forward to that car, I must say.
I am as well and we've done an exterior reveal of the car prematurely as it turned out.
But we still love the design. We still really love the design.
So the car that you see that we've unveiled is going to be very similar to what we bring to market.
And I think it will be a hugely successful car.
Having the kind of level of off-road capability that it will have alongside just the, you know, I kind of talked about it being kind of more our bane,
but it's just sort of slightly more urban manners, I suppose.
Reconpinion steering, for example.
Just painted body parts, just things to make it just a little bit more refined.
So the refined, the slightly more refined smaller brother of the grandeur is how we're kind of thinking about it.
How have you found the rest of the motor industry as a new entrant?
Is it quite, you mentioned other manufacturers earlier, do you feel welcomed in or are they, you know, when you're talking to them, are they receptive?
Yeah, I'm welcomed in. I'm not sure.
I think that, you know, a lot of them just kind of don't really think about us that much, to be honest.
But I will make an observation.
I think that the industry is, and look, it is a bit of a pointed statement, and it's not meant to be directly critical.
But I do think that the industry has had and needs a big wake-up call.
I've made some comments already around, you know, we need to stand up to regulators and actually put the customer at the heart of what we do
and remember that that's actually the most important thing.
And I think with the onslaught of Chinese vehicles, particularly in Europe, I think that Europe is, and this is actually not just in the automotive industry.
I mean, you'll hear Jim talking about it in the chemical industry, and I'm sure there are many other industries as well.
We are too bureaucratic, we are too regulated, and we are taxed too highly, and that means that we as a continent are completely uncompetitive.
And I think that whether it's the politicians or whether it's all the heads of European OEMs, we need to be really quite scared about what's going on at the moment and act and act quickly.
And from an automotive perspective, that also means acting quickly on technology.
It means catching up because the Chinese have kind of stolen a march.
You don't have the Chinese threats quite as urgently as some, do you?
There aren't direct competitors for the grenadier at the moment from China, are there?
No, I don't feel like we are competing head to head at all.
We're just sitting really in a kind of a lane of our own, which is quite nice, but we can still look on as an industry player and see that it is going to and is not going to.
It already has upended the market in an extremely significant way, and that's not going to change.
So, you know, other manufacturers are going to have to work out how they compete.
It's interesting to me that you're already at work on, I mean, here we are in the very pub where the grenadier idea was born.
You've recently launched quite an impressive movie on the socials about the way the car came to be.
Presumably, the heritage is something you're going to stress strongly, even though it's a young company.
I think heritage of any brand is absolutely central to it.
Lots of brands would want to have a story like ours, because for any product, not just cars, you know, because it's just so random.
Well, it's genuine, isn't it? It's real.
It's 100% genuine, and actually one of the kind of funny things about that is, you know, so Jim, obviously, the story is that this was his local pub,
and he was sitting in the pub with a bunch of mates and had the idea, sketched it out on a five-pound note and pinned it to the ceiling.
The five is on the ceiling, isn't it?
Yeah, like lots of other fivers on the ceiling, because that's the grenadier pub thing.
And actually, what people maybe don't know so much is that after that, you know, the car went into development, obviously, and there was a big project.
It was called Project Grenadier that went on for a couple of years.
And at that point, Jim was obviously thinking about what we're going to call this car, and it had been called Project Grenadier for the reason of the pub.
And they had lots of ideas about what they could call the car.
I wasn't involved at the time, but I was an Ineos, and I remember an email coming out, which was, it was effectively a survey.
Like, what do you think would be better?
And I can't actually remember what the other names were.
I do need to look out that email at some point, but it was a resounding response of Grenadier.
It's a perfect name for the car.
So the heritage of any brand is really important, and we absolutely want to make sure that this is not just about a product.
It's about a story, and that story is quite special.
Does the football in the pub, has it been affected by the fact that a car was dreamt up here?
Do you know whether Ineos customers come here for a pint of sentimental reasons?
I do. I mean, I think Tony, our landlord here, he does very, very well.
Generally, it's always been a really nice little busy pub.
We own the pub now, and it's always been, I think it's one of our kind of biggest money spinners at the moment.
It's doing really well.
But yeah, what I certainly see anecdotally around the world, and Tony and I were laughing about it earlier,
is the amount of people who now kind of see it as a little bit of a kind of pilgrimage.
Yeah, I would. I definitely would. Especially if I had a car, I'd want to come and bung it out the front to take the picture.
And that happens a lot. And actually, we've got some great stories of people who have driven all across the Middle East through Europe
and landed here as their end point to have a pint and take a picture.
And of course, we unveiled our World Origin site plaque earlier this week as well,
which actually commemorates officially the birth of the grandeur.
Outside at the moment is a prototype for a military vehicle that you might build.
We're all aware that Land Rover has been discontinued as a British Army vehicle of choice, of basic.
So that presents a gigantic opportunity, doesn't it, because they seem to take at times tens of thousands of these vehicles.
Just tell us about the, were you asked to do it, or is this you making a bid for business? How will it proceed?
I think it does represent a huge opportunity for us. And if I could be so bold, I think for the Ministry of Defence as well,
for the forces, because I think it is the car for the job.
But no, we haven't been contacted per se, but we are bidding, we're participating in the tender to win that.
So there's a process underway now?
There's a process underway.
And I think that in a world where most defence forces around the world are trying to localise,
actually most countries on everything they buy at the moment are trying to localise.
We're living not in a globalised world at the moment, we're living in a protectionist world at the moment,
and I'd like to see our Britishness recognised for that.
And although we take a bit of a pending from time to time for having built the car in France and not the UK,
and look, that was an opportunistic, there was a factory available and it was for sale,
and it allowed us to get up and running as quickly as possible.
And it was an ex-Mercedes-Benz factory, so we walked into a ready-made workforce,
a very skilled workforce, rather than building something from the ground up,
which would probably mean we wouldn't have grenadiers on the road today.
So the decision was not an emotional one, it was a business one,
if we could have made it in the UK we would have.
But we are British, we are a British company, Jim is British, we are taxed in Britain,
this is a British company, so I kind of hope that that will be recognised.
Along with the fact that there's no other car that's as analogue as ours,
it's very difficult to build an analogue car in today's world,
because of all the regulations and electronics that are required to operate an engine in today's world.
But ours has got a fraction of the electronic control units as most other vehicles,
so I think we should have a good shout, I hope that we'll have a good shout.
When will you, how does the process proceed?
Is it sort of years of cogitation by boffins that we don't know?
I hope not, Steve. I hope not.
I've got the impression that it is a fast track process,
but I still don't think that necessarily means that it's all that fast,
there's a lot of big decisions to be made.
So yeah, the process will run on for a few months.
Is the thing that we remember or know from the Land Rover,
especially my colleague here being a proprietor of a 250,000-mile Land Rover,
is that they're very configurable?
Can you give us, I know you're going to say much more about this vehicle in a week or two,
but can you just give us a flavour of what it can do?
I think it comes down to, so configurable, yes.
There's no two Grenadiers that are the same,
because everyone who buys it modifies it in quite extreme ways.
But I think one of the biggest selling points of the Grenadier
is that if you take it straight out of the box, factory,
it's got everything you need for a job like this,
and that's, again, quite unusual in today's world.
So whether that's the configuration of the car, the body on frame,
the ground clearance, the approach angle, the departure angle, the triple diffs,
or whether it's the fact that it's got a factory installed winch,
which most other, in fact, I think we're the only vehicle
that's got a factory homologated winch.
So in terms of what comes out of handbag rules off the line
onto a transporter and into the field,
I don't think there's anything that requires as little modification as ours does.
Now, of course, any military force is going to want to do a little bit of what they need,
their radio systems, what they want the back to look like.
And again, what you've seen outside is our chassis cab,
so it's effectively the front double cab of a Grenadier station wagon,
but with a fully modifiable rear.
So you can take the kind of guts of the vehicle of what it can do.
I gather you can leave the tray behind.
You can stick it on our stands and drive away.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Yeah, I mean, it's whatever you want to do with it, really.
And the reason we did the chassis cab without the kind of either the passenger back of the station wagon
or the loading bay of the quartermaster is just exactly for this purpose.
Like, what do you want the car to be?
Those sell really well in Australia, again, by the way,
because people want to kind of modify them normally for tourism.
You know, stick their own kind of bed on the back if you like and make it a camper.
Or, you know, workmen doing the same for their own purposes.
So the chassis cab, I think, will be a great military opportunity.
Yeah.
And presumably, as you were saying, people prefer to localize more than they used to,
but Land Rover had international sales, huge international sales at one state,
didn't they?
I mean, Indian Army, various African places that don't necessarily have manufacturing of their own.
So, presumably, if you crack one, you can hope to crack quite a few.
I mentioned earlier that what we're trying to do in the UK is building on a little bit of what we've done elsewhere.
Things like Border Force, Elite Forces, Special Operations in France, Spain, Serbia,
Slovakia, Hungary, Germany were already really quite successful with all of that.
We're actually trying to build in the UK what we've kind of started to build elsewhere.
Forces in Africa that you kind of mentioned where they don't have their local production
were quite mature in some tenders there for some really quite large deals as well.
So, yeah, I think a lot of the first three years of the Grenadier being in the market
was people testing it.
So, a lot of the Border Forces or Police Forces fire ambulance would buy one or two.
And what we found the back end of last year into this year is that they're coming back
with proper volume now because they've tested it and they think it does the job.
So, that's part of kind of why we're making some real headway this year.
What's happened in the way of buying vehicles?
Because when the cars first mooted, I was a bit confused by the way they were going to be sold.
Me too.
Okay, but nowadays you can just find a dealer, can't you?
Yeah, and when I started jokingly seeing me too, I think when I first came in,
I was also trying to understand how we were going to sell,
because that was exactly when I came in, how are we going to sell this vehicle?
And I fully understand why we went the route we did because it was kind of of its moment.
It was fashionable at the time to sell agency, so you direct sell,
but you have an agent which could be a dealer, but they would just effectively pass the car,
you know, take a small fee to pass the car from us to the customer.
It doesn't really work. It just doesn't work.
You know, the customer is the loser in that model, because they do not get looked after really.
Ineos isn't equipped to look after every customer.
The agent doesn't believe it's their customer, so they just kind of say nothing to do with us.
The customer is the loser, and that was my big learning, you know, even within the first nine, 12 months.
So we have thrown that out in every region now,
and we sell through dealers who are, we should never have had the hubris to imagine that we can,
that we, Ineos, would know how to sell cars better than people who've been doing it for 100 years.
So you're just saying that sort of thing is a bit of variance with some other CEOs we could name.
It's very disarming, I think, that kind of attitude, I must say.
Well, thank you, Steve. It's definitely, you know, it's the attitude of my entire team.
You know, we are about the customer, about this fantastic product,
and about our partners who want to work with us to build this business,
and, you know, we need to, we were never going to join this industry and do it with zero mistakes,
and I think if you can own up to those and then move on and have really open conversations,
that's why we were able to switch the model was just to say quite openly this isn't working.
The customer is losing. How do we fix it?
And actually what we have now is a global network of, you know, a couple of hundred dealers around the world
who are really on this journey with us.
Well, can I ask, let me ask one more.
When we met before, you and I had a chat at an event run by Siemens,
and the way it concluded was that we started talking about the fact that you were a woman in a,
what is seen as a bloke's domain, and you just didn't engage on the gender business,
but what you made was a fantastic point about diversity in another way, another,
just give us a burst on that for you. I thought it was a fantastic thing to say.
So I'm really big on diversity of thought rather than diversity of people in terms of,
you know, you've got to have one of those, those.
And, you know, I'm not here because of my gender, because that's not how any of us works.
Any of us is a very clear meritocracy.
You get to be where you get to if you're good at what you do.
And that's a great thing for me, right?
Because that means that I've kind of got a tick there so far, lots, lots to do.
The diversity of thought piece is much more around we tend to, as humans,
hire in our own vision, right?
So the people that you get on with the best are the people that look a little bit like you,
sound a little bit like you, talk a little bit like you, dress a little bit like you.
And before you know it, you've got a board of directors and a senior management team
that are all waiting the same, looking the same, and violently agreeing with one another.
And I don't think that gets you the best outcomes in anything.
And I think the automotive industry is like that.
You know, I think it is, again, I'm being a little pointed,
but I think it's a lot of people who look the same, sound the same, talk the same.
And they are insular.
And, you know, it doesn't, I'm not saying it should be people like me who come in
or people like someone else who comes in.
It's not about race, gender, ethnicity, disability.
It's about actually have people on your board who don't necessarily think like you
and who challenge you and who come up with different ideas from the ones that you might come up with.
I think this industry could really benefit from that.
And you've seen it work?
Yeah, I think so. I think that, I mean, we're a renegade, Steve.
You know, we're an absolute died-in-the-wool renegade,
which means that we get to do renegade things.
You know, we can be a little bit different from everyone else.
We're also a private company that allows us an element of rope that public companies maybe don't have.
But that's the dime side of public companies.
You know, when you feel like you can't see what you think because you don't want to affect your share price,
I think much more important to do the right things for your business and make the right decisions.
Super.
Thanks very much for your time.
Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Steve.
Thank you for joining us.
Steve and I will be back on Wednesday with our regular My Week in Cars podcast.
Also, thanks to our sponsor Anderson, visit Anderson-ev.com for more from them.
See you next time.
About this episode
Lynn Calder, CEO of INEOS Automotive, talks through why ADAS and other driver-assistance tech keep arriving even when customers want them off—then zooms into Grenadier updates, steering changes, and measurable maneuverability gains for model year 26. She explains the brand’s growth via repeat buyers, fleet and rental wins (including Hertz), and why grassroots enthusiasm matters. Calder also connects Europe’s regulatory and tariff pressures—like the “chicken tax”—to the company’s roadmap, including range-extender thinking and future model plans.
In this bonus episode of the Autocar podcast, Autocar Meets Lynn Calder, CEO of Ineos Automotive, makers of the Grenadier. Calder tells Cropley and Prior about running "a renegade brand", what it's like to launch a new car in the middle of pandemics, wars, and tariffs, how the car was conceived in a pub and Ineos's future plans, including new models and hoping to replace the British military's Land Rovers.
For more on the stories behind Ineos, read Autocar here.
