My opinion is: It seems that the Grenadier will or has in a short time satisified the 4x4 enthusiasts scene....and there is no modell to compensate if its entry into the normal consumer market will run not so well....add the problems and it may explain the situation.
My opinion to the problems is, despite hiring experts from the automotive market and industry (what Ineos did), starting a new car, even if you take existing parts and plug them together, means you have to go through a tough engineering learning curve. Building a car is one of the most complex things in industry to do. That's what Tesla went through and even EM had to admit that building cars the conventional way is still the right way to do it (if you remeber what EM said years ago: that he wants to do everything different) BTW, Tesla gets slowly into trouble as Hertz, Sixt, and companies (like SAP with 29000 company cars) have kicked out Teslas from their fleets and BYD has become #1 in many countries and even in Germany VW is superior to Tesla now. EM decreasing the price several times in the past months was maybe a good tactical decision, but a bad strategic one. However, Tesla was kept up by the spirit of EM and his "enfant terrible" attitude and the hyped E-car market in general and there was and is much more money behind it than at Ineos.
If you look at other companies, building small batches of cars, you can see that they use existing platforms and add their stuff. And even this causes a lot of problems, but far less as if you start at point zero.
Ineos has increased the price without offering more. That is something which doesn't work for customers. Customers are willing to pay less for the same or pay the same for more or pay more for more. I do not talk about absolue enthusiasts, like we can all see here. But that is a far too small customer base for a complete new development of a car. I told guys from Ineos once, to start cheap (I saw end of 40k, beginning of 50K), with low entrance models and to give the customer the chance to upgrade (at their will) and to have potential for Ineos upgrades (with price increases) and facelifts, etc. to justify an increased price. But they decided to jump in at a very high price. Then they increased the price without offering more (and at the same time firefighting a lot of problems). So where is room for improvement without going far over 100K? And will that mean another price increase?
The question is, if IA can survive this learning curve (from the financial point of view and their reputation). Even if JR is very rich, he never ever would risk his private money. And the money invested must be backed up, either by banks, the chemical business (which struggles) or whatever....IA is a business unit within Ineos, it is managed by (already existing) Ineos managers, so there is Ineos money in.... And who or whatever backs this up, is watching closely.
AWo
My opinion to the problems is, despite hiring experts from the automotive market and industry (what Ineos did), starting a new car, even if you take existing parts and plug them together, means you have to go through a tough engineering learning curve. Building a car is one of the most complex things in industry to do. That's what Tesla went through and even EM had to admit that building cars the conventional way is still the right way to do it (if you remeber what EM said years ago: that he wants to do everything different) BTW, Tesla gets slowly into trouble as Hertz, Sixt, and companies (like SAP with 29000 company cars) have kicked out Teslas from their fleets and BYD has become #1 in many countries and even in Germany VW is superior to Tesla now. EM decreasing the price several times in the past months was maybe a good tactical decision, but a bad strategic one. However, Tesla was kept up by the spirit of EM and his "enfant terrible" attitude and the hyped E-car market in general and there was and is much more money behind it than at Ineos.
If you look at other companies, building small batches of cars, you can see that they use existing platforms and add their stuff. And even this causes a lot of problems, but far less as if you start at point zero.
Ineos has increased the price without offering more. That is something which doesn't work for customers. Customers are willing to pay less for the same or pay the same for more or pay more for more. I do not talk about absolue enthusiasts, like we can all see here. But that is a far too small customer base for a complete new development of a car. I told guys from Ineos once, to start cheap (I saw end of 40k, beginning of 50K), with low entrance models and to give the customer the chance to upgrade (at their will) and to have potential for Ineos upgrades (with price increases) and facelifts, etc. to justify an increased price. But they decided to jump in at a very high price. Then they increased the price without offering more (and at the same time firefighting a lot of problems). So where is room for improvement without going far over 100K? And will that mean another price increase?
The question is, if IA can survive this learning curve (from the financial point of view and their reputation). Even if JR is very rich, he never ever would risk his private money. And the money invested must be backed up, either by banks, the chemical business (which struggles) or whatever....IA is a business unit within Ineos, it is managed by (already existing) Ineos managers, so there is Ineos money in.... And who or whatever backs this up, is watching closely.
AWo
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