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New car start-up Ineos Grenadier is bucking the electric vehicle trend and banking on Australia’s love of four-wheel driving to carve a niche for its unashamedly old school combustion engine vehicle.

The start-up automotive manufacturer, conceived as the passion project of an English chemical company billionaire, is about to launch a rugged off-roader aimed at touring enthusiasts, farmers and industries hamstrung by distance and difficult terrain.

Ineos Automotive Asia Pacific head Justin Hocevar with the new Grenadier. Credit: Chris Hopkins

The Ineos Grenadier, labelled the “spiritual successor” of the classic Land Rover Defender because of its remarkably similar body shape, is the brainchild of UK chemicals giant Ineos Group chairman Jim Ratcliffe who, the story goes, conceived the car six years ago while sipping an ale in an English pub called the Grenadier.

Ratcliffe’s disappointment at the “soft” engineering of many modern off-road vehicles, spurred a focus on durability, off-road capability and functionality in harsh environments.

The fossil fuel powered start-up won’t be swimming against an electric current in Australia for a while yet.

New car buyers, fond of their weekend off-road adventures, made the fuel guzzling Toyota Hilux the highest selling car model across the country in September, closely followed by the Ford Ranger, another popular twin-cab four-wheel drive ute.

“We’re not an anti-EV company by any stretch of the imagination,” said Ineos Automotive Asia Pacific head Justin Hocevar. “But for this vehicle to be electric, we would need a huge weight of batteries, and it would never provide the kind of range that people are expecting.”

Instead, the company is taking on the off-road might of Toyota which has carved valuable niche in the mining industry and in the country’s collective four-wheel drive outback imagination.

Ineos has established a network of 32 agents around the country, with just four based in capital cities while the rest are located in regional hubs.

They will stock, service and repair its vehicles, but the company also expects to cater to hardened off-road enthusiasts by providing open-source repair manuals, online parts catalogues and an ecommerce platform that will send parts to any location. It’s basing its Asia Pacific hub in Melbourne.

“In terms of four-wheel drive, range anxiety is heightened. A fully electric vehicle needs a huge battery, over 100 kilowatts, to go into the bush and back.”

Ineos’ six cylinder BMW engine is built to Euro 6 emissions standards. “That’s already higher than what’s required here,” Hocevar said.

Uptake is starting to exceed supply with Australian orders just behind UK and Germany, Hocevar said. The company expects to ship cars to customers by the end of the year.

“I think we will be alright between now and 2030, but in many markets around the world, we will have to adapt,” he acknowledges. Ineos is modelling its next prototype with a hydrogen fuel cell power train and is looking at a smaller battery electric vehicle with the same DNA.

While the pulse of electric vehicle sales is relatively weak in Australia, it is beginning to beat harder.

The same September car sales figures - a total of 93,555 vehicles sold that month, up 12.3 per cent on the year - show Tesla’s Model Y nipping at the rear bumper of the Ranger with 4359 of its EVs rolling off the showroom floor making it the third-highest selling model.

The electric off-road sector is a tougher nut to crack.

In the US, car giant Ford is making inroads with its electric F150 Lighting pickup while rival General Motors is manufacturing a freakish electric Hummer - a four-ton off-roader that can speed from 0 to 60 mph in 3 seconds. Another US off-road start-up, Rivian, is also rolling off assembly lines.

“Because Australia is such a small market and far away from where they’re being built, we won’t be seeing them here for a long time,” said Alex Rae, editor of specialist website automotivedaily.com.au.

Rae said hydrogen was a more likely alternative to provide clean energy for long-range touring vehicles. “In terms of four-wheel drive, range anxiety is heightened. A fully electric vehicle needs a huge battery, over 100 kilowatts, to go into the bush and back.”

Earlier this month, Korean car giant Hyundai and fossil fuel supplier Ampol said they will partner to give Hyundai electric drivers access to Ampol’s AmpCharge network, along with bundled energy offers for home charging.

They are also targeting electric vehicle fleet owners to provide charging and hydrogen solutions.

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