Letter to Lynne Calder

[Shopkeep]

considering the past 2 years of us publicly griping about certain things, I somehow doubt Ineos is going to suddenly be gobsmacked and offended by a repost of a public post with statements of a vetted conversation, by Ann. The fanboys-in-the-hood need to take a deep breath. Ineos isn’t gonna suddenly do, or not do, anything due to her actions. Ya-all livin’ in a bubble.

I don't really care what Ineos makes of it, its more the lack of respect for something that was developed by @Tom D and the forum. Anyway, back to my bubble....

 

[Max]

I don't really care what Ineos makes of it, its more the lack of respect for something that was developed by @Tom D and the forum. Anyway, back to my bubble....

You are right from a forum member's point of view...I share the same and I still cannot understand what is achieved, except venting venom.
But I believe and hope what has developed from the sour grapes of one member turns into a sweet wine for IA to have a good message out there...

 

[Commodore]

I’m glad I posted it and will continue to do so….like it or not. My choice.

What a wonderful attitude. Many of us have grown tired of your complaining and how you feel so wronged by a startup car company. Sell your car and move on to a toaster… I mean Toyota. Best of luck.

 

[mattexplore]

I had dinner with Lynn, George and some other key members of the Ineos team last month at a press event, and I can assure you—they’re well aware of the product’s growing pains. Both are sharp, enthusiastic, and genuinely committed to making the Grenadier better.

It’s easy to forget just how small of a car company this is, and how quickly they’re scaling.

As a car writer by trade, I’ve learned two things that are almost always true:

1. Car companies never comment on future product changes.
2. Changes don’t happen overnight. Not even if you’re Ford. And especially not if you’re Ineos.

 

[Skymark]

I had dinner with Lynn, George and some other key members of the Ineos team last month at a press event, and I can assure you—they’re well aware of the product’s growing pains. Both are sharp, enthusiastic, and genuinely committed to making the Grenadier better.

It’s easy to forget just how small of a car company this is, and how quickly they’re scaling.

As a car writer by trade, I’ve learned two things that are almost always true:

1. Car companies never comment on future product changes.
2. Changes don’t happen overnight. Not even if you’re Ford. And especially not if you’re Ineos.

Having done the startup thing myself, no doubt you are correct. Management and employee bandwidth limitation is a real thing in the early years. All dimensions must be optimized at once, which is an inherent paradox. So yes rapidly expand into 50+ markets and yes take enough care of dealers and after sale customer support.
In my opinion the very best companies are extremely careful about what they publicly commit to but once verbalized, follow through and do what they say with verbalized dates. Equally important during the inevitable zig-zag of startup life, communicate when those dates or why the reality must change. Do it right and you actually build goodwill during the incredible @#*#!! show that is startup life.
Ineos made strong commitments early regarding workshop manuals to support a diy ethos for their vehicle. That was a statement of value as much as anything. IMO, even more than their failure thus far to deliver on this commitment, the lack of communication has been the biggest issue because it implies INEOS is backing away from the set of values that attracted many to the brand in the first place.
From an execution perspective (and of course as a very biased observer) my inner armchair quarterback says aftersale word of mouth in their largest markets might be more important than expanding into the 51st country which likely has a tiny, tiny market size comparatively speaking. Convenient how self-serving this last observation is eh?

 

[Zimm]

Shouting people down merely because they are saying something you don't like, even if you vehemently disagree with it, is pretty much the best litmus test of your mental maturity. Sure, even the first amendment in pre maga times didn't protect the president from punishment for the proverbial shouting FIRE in a crowded theater, but...... is that really what happened here? I'm reading some posts up above that read like she failed some dystopian forum loyalty oath. That's some pretty pathetic shit right there. The very same people that scream idiotically, "you should have known you'd get fucked, because it's a new car company" sudden think the CEO and legal dept of a multinational didn't know if they put something in writing on public forum, someone would read it, and share it. As for any discord here, it takes 2 or in this case 200, to tango.

I really hope Ann deleted her oh so irritating self, if not, I'd like the CEO here to tell us EXACTLY what she got deleted for.

 

[Zimm]

I had dinner with Lynn, George and some other key members of the Ineos team last month at a press event, and I can assure you—they’re well aware of the product’s growing pains. Both are sharp, enthusiastic, and genuinely committed to making the Grenadier better.

It’s easy to forget just how small of a car company this is, and how quickly they’re scaling.

As a car writer by trade, I’ve learned two things that are almost always true:

1. Car companies never comment on future product changes.
2. Changes don’t happen overnight. Not even if you’re Ford. And especially not if you’re Ineos.

Actually, you got it completely backwards. The larger the company, the harder it is to make changes.

So, "With," would imply the head table at the presser. Otherwise, its "at". Since you're a known journalist at a presser anything that is told to you that is not preceded by "off the record" is on the record. Is there anything else she said? if so, do you plan on sharing it here? If not, where?

 

[AnD3rew]

So here’s Lynn Calder’s response.
I talked to her on the phone for well over an hour this morning and picked her brains on many of the issues covered in the letter. I recorded the call for my own benefit and will make a transcript of it so I can add more details to the points in the letter. I don’t have time to do that right now however. I will not be posting the recording or the transcript before you ask!

What I will say is that I was impressed with Lynn and her overall attitude. She has been very honest in the letter as you will see, She was not afraid to admit where failings had been made and I believe that she is committed to making improvements. I think I’ll just let you guys read the letter and ask questions here. I can then answer where I can from the points Lynn made in our conversation. There’s some very positive stuff and also some things where work still needs to be done. Some of my questions she didn’t know the answer to and she is going to go away and research them and get back to me. She is also amenable to a Q&A between the forum and her plus members of her team, in order to answer specific questions that we may have.

So to sum things up as I see them;
The manual is coming but not as interactive as first promised.
The ADAS system has fixes, some are already out but it depends on which model year you have. Its coming. Latest models have an ‘OFF’ button.
New service agents have been found and will be announced soon. (In the UK anyway) and I think also in the ROW..
Customer service is being improved.
There’s a lot more but I need to check back over the recording..

We even talked about the fusilier and potential new grenadier variants… Although I think she was getting sick of me by the end LOL.

I haven’t been here in a while, lots of crazy but positive life stuff going on but saw that a letter was here and dropped in to read. Thank you Tom for this initiative and for posting. This I think is a good sign and I think pretty open from Lynn, in some ways nothing we haven’t kind of heard from other channels in bits and pieces but great to have Lynn put it all together personally. I have been fortunate enough to have a great experience with my agent/dealer and it does make all the difference and I hope they can replicate that everywhere. I actually feel for their challenges and good to see them being honest about the fact that they bit off more than they can chew. I can live with a basic manual, the flash version would have been nice but a a basic one will do. If they focus on dealer customer experience and supply chain for parts etc it will be a great start and give confidence to new buyers

 

[Trialmaster]

Kripes Annee is no longer of this Parish. In a world of FREE SPEECH, I wonder why she has been deleted.

The Forum Police must have taken a KIER STARMER marxist pill!

 

[IslandFalconer]

Having done the startup thing myself, no doubt you are correct. Management and employee bandwidth limitation is a real thing in the early years. All dimensions must be optimized at once, which is an inherent paradox. So yes rapidly expand into 50+ markets and yes take enough care of dealers and after sale customer support.
In my opinion the very best companies are extremely careful about what they publicly commit to but once verbalized, follow through and do what they say with verbalized dates. Equally important during the inevitable zig-zag of startup life, communicate when those dates or why the reality must change. Do it right and you actually build goodwill during the incredible @#*#!! show that is startup life.
Ineos made strong commitments early regarding workshop manuals to support a diy ethos for their vehicle. That was a statement of value as much as anything. IMO, even more than their failure thus far to deliver on this commitment, the lack of communication has been the biggest issue because it implies INEOS is backing away from the set of values that attracted many to the brand in the first place.
From an execution perspective (and of course as a very biased observer) my inner armchair quarterback says aftersale word of mouth in their largest markets might be more important than expanding into the 51st country which likely has a tiny, tiny market size comparatively speaking. Convenient how self-serving this last observation is eh?

I agree with this statement. My biggest frustration with Ineos is the lack of any integrity. They made very public statements about why the Grenadier was, what it was about and how “user serviceable” it would be. They have delivered exactly Zero on that front.

Meanwhile they are marketing new trims and hitting all the marketing circuits.

I’d just like a team devoted to fixing the situation more promptly. It’s taking way too long to deliver on everything’s

 

[Tom D]

I agree with this statement. My biggest frustration with Ineos is the lack of any integrity. They made very public statements about why the Grenadier was, what it was about and how “user serviceable” it would be. They have delivered exactly Zero on that front.

Meanwhile they are marketing new trims and hitting all the marketing circuits.

I’d just like a team devoted to fixing the situation more promptly. It’s taking way too long to deliver on everything’s

She has a team working on it right now. I think the issue was that prior to the letter it wasn’t a priority. They just didn’t have the bandwidth for the after sales and it got neglected. I am confident that they are on it now. We’ll see what they come back with in a few weeks time.

 

[Baron von Teuchter]

Kripes Annee is no longer of this Parish. In a world of FREE SPEECH, I wonder why she has been deleted.

The Forum Police must have taken a KIER STARMER marxist pill!

It was all getting a bit frantic.

She’s all over the various social media Ineos pages and groups, I had to block her to keep all of her content off my various feeds.

I have no doubt that if you care to look you’ll find her talking about this place too.

 

[IslandFalconer]

She has a team working on it right now. I think the issue was that prior to the letter it wasn’t a priority. They just didn’t have the bandwidth for the after sales and it got neglected. I am confident that they are on it now. We’ll see what they come back with in a few weeks time.

You’re more confident than Me. I’ve had too many broken promises at this point. It’s taken far too long to resolve trivial issues like one line of code for ADAS. The number of issues I’ve had and the inability to get customer service is frankly not acceptable. Bandwidth be damned you dot ignore customers with problems because you’re “busy” Things need to start happening soon, and software is a good start that’s a year late and I doubt it will be much of an update