Ineos Grenadier, the tough off-roader, will soon be equipped with advanced safety technology to comply with global regulation changes. This includes autonomous emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance, and other features that are currently lacking but are common on most new cars.
The Ineos Grenadier is expected to come to Australia with a relatively low level of safety equipment. While it will still meet minimum Australian safety standards, the absence of advanced technology such as autonomous emergency braking, traffic sign recognition, and lane-keep assistance means it would likely score a zero-star rating out of five by independent authority ANCAP and its European counterpart.
However, government regulations mandate higher levels of safety equipment as a minimum standard, and Ineos Automotive will need to include more safety technology to remain on sale and comply with the new rules. Most cars already have such technology as standard, but Ineos has chosen to launch the vehicle as a bare-bones proposition and add the extra safety tech later.
Justin Hocevar, the local boss for Ineos Automotive in the Asia-Pacific region, confirmed that Australia is in line to receive additional safety technology as it becomes available. However, some of it may not be fitted as standard equipment, as some buyers in this category prefer to keep it simple.
Currently, the Ineos Grenadier comes with six airbags inside, anti-lock brakes, and stability control. However, crash-avoidance technology such as autonomous emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, lane-keeping assistance, and traffic sign recognition are currently not available at any price.
In Australia, any new passenger vehicles from March 2023 will be required to have autonomous emergency braking as standard equipment. Existing cars on sale will need to have it included by March 2025. Commercial vehicles like utes, vans, and those with a GVM of over 3500kg (like the Ineos Grenadier) have a slightly longer deadline: November 2023 for new models, and February 2025 for existing models.
In Europe, all new vehicles will be forced to have intelligent speed assistance, reversing detection with camera or sensors, attention warning in case of driver drowsiness, emergency stop signal, and cybersecurity measures by July 7, 2024. Cars and vans in Europe will additionally require lane-keep assistance, advanced emergency braking, and event data recorders.
Ineos Automotive says that these elements were not included initially to keep the Grenadier as simple as possible. The vehicle uses around 35 “computers” throughout the car, while other vehicles of a similar size use between 75-100 computers. A luxury large electric vehicle can use as many as 200 computers.
