The difficulties just keep on coming for Ineos, the billionaire-backed startup that’s attempting to capture the magic of old-school Land Rover Defenders by creating a modern equivalent. The Grenadier SUV and Quartermaster pickup truck have hit the market, and the Fusilier SUV is eventually to follow. But Ineos is building its vehicles in Europe, and that means a tariff hit on imports to the vital U.S. market. CEO Lynn Calder wants to do something about that by quickly firing up production in America. From Automotive News, citing the Financial Times:
Calder told the Financial Times that the economics of building Grenadiers in France to sell in America has become far more difficult with the latest U.S. levies. “Europe is a high-cost location to manufacture anything, quite frankly . . . and now you add the tariff on top of that, for sure, it’s made things a lot more challenging,” Calder said. Calder told Automotive News Europe this year that the U.S. accounted for more than 60 percent of Ineos’ global sales.
Ineos is reportedly exploring several options, including starting up its own factory in the U.S. or tapping into another automaker’s excess manufacturing capacity.
A victim of its own success
Ineos has endured problems, ranging from the aforementioned tariffs to some up-and-down pricing on the Grenadier SUV since earlier this year. The Quartermaster pickup was already staring down the longstanding 25% “chicken tax” tariff on trucks imported to the U.S. before Trump ended up slapping an additional 15% levy on vehicles coming to America from the European Union (and that’s a lower level of tariffs than was initially contemplated). Currently, the Grenadier starts at $71,000 before destination, while the Quartermaster is $84,400.
However, for something of a vanity project — founder Jim Ratcliffe decided to create the Grenadier after he was unable to obtain the old Defender designs from Jaguar Land Rover when the off-roading legend was rebooted — Ineos has managed to create a new automotive brand, and it has been a qualified success in the States. In a statement to Automotive News, the company explained its position:
“We envision a manufacturing operation in the U.S. and [Europe], producing where we sell,” the spokesperson said….”The Americas market is the largest for Ineos Grenadier globally, we are seeing high demand and want to be able to capitalize on the momentum as we expand our portfolio.”
It was always going to come to this
I worked for an automaker that built cars in Europe but wanted to sell a lot of vehicles in the U.S.; it was a no-brainer that we would eventually do what Ineos is now considering, because it made better long-term business sense. And that was before the massive 2025 tariff shakeup! Ineos’ factory is in France (a former Mercedes plant that Ineos bought in 2020), but the vehicles the company is currently selling are a better fit with the U.S. market. The forthcoming Fusilier will be a smaller SUV with multiple powertrain options to better serve European customers, but an extended-range hybrid will precede a planned EV.
In fact, you could argue that although Ineos isn’t yet offering a definitive commitment to U.S. production, the writing is clearly on the wall. Calder also told Automotive News earlier this year that she wants to increase production to 30,000 units annually. Obviously, if more than half of that production is destined to be sold in the U.S., then it would be foolish to expose it to tariffs and potentially be forced to raise prices to cover the costs.
