INEOS Grenadier
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ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
I'm 100% in, if things keep going the way they are going. Realistically due to COVID restrictions our current rig still has a lot of life in it, so we'd have to be cautious about the need for two vehicles of this type as I originally had the vision of replacing my current rig with this so it might be a few years further in the future, but honestly I have no hesitations about this vehicle. I'm based out of YEG so this represented a 6-hour round trip, but it was a great day out with the family and my son was apparently the first kid to crawl around a Grenadier. He loved it, for what it's worth -- he is only 2 years old and refers to the Grenadier as "beep beep" whenever he sees it on YouTube or on my trip planning wall, so he had a lot of enthusiastic "beep beeps" when he got to see the real thing.
SkiWill
Well-known member
I work in the energy industry, and, for whatever it is worth, I think the goals of no ICE sales by 2035 and net zero by 2050 are, unfortunately, aspirational. Fact of the matter is that presently we have nowhere near the production of minerals required to meet the needs of battery makers to end production of ICE vehicles by 2035, and it's not even close. I hear a lot of arguments about recycling, which will be necessary in the future, but you still have to complete the initial buildout. Cars last for 10-20 years, so it's not like we can recycle batteries from one car today to make 10 cars tomorrow.
Pacific Northwest National Lab has an excellent battery research program which I follow. One of their consultants indicated that current supply of materials gets us to maybe 20% ish of the way to no ICE cars by 2035. Automakers are already running out of batteries and cannot make electric cars not because they don't sell, but because they can't get batteries. The expectation is that hybrids will be around for a long time to come simply because there's no way to meet the staggering material demand.
Assuming that we could meet those demands, we then have to more than double the electrical transmission infrastructure to facilitate car charging in remote locations plus an increase in renewables which drives further demand for battery energy storage from a grid perspective. The fundamental physics indicate that we are moving from energy dense sources (fossil fuels) to energy sources which are not nearly as energy dense such as batteries, wind, solar, etc. This means we have to mine way more material, run way more wiring, more transmission towers, and have heavier vehicles for the same range. That means just to get to the energy demand of today (never mind tomorrow) we need WAY more infrastructure, and it took us over 100 years to build what we have. To say that we can more than double that infrastructure in 15-30 years when it has become far more difficult to permit and acquire right of ways to build that infrastructure, there's already a craft labor shortage to maintain the infrastructure that we currently have, and that everyone will accept the requisite higher costs is a fairly unlikely scenario under such a short timeframe.
If we buy Grenadiers and can't find fuel in 20 years for them I'll be shocked, but maybe it also means that we did a much better job addressing energy needs and environmental challenges than I thought we would. In which case, I'd be more than happy that I overpaid somewhat for my Grenadier or didn't get quite 20 years of full-time service out of it. Remember, fossil fuels still provide about 85% of our primary global energy. Replacing that 85% with something else that is less energy dense, by laws of physics, will not be easy nor as fast as many of us would like.
This is all from my perspective as an actual engineer with actual project experience and not a political statement one way or the other since politics ruins everything.
If you want a Grenadier and can afford it, go for it. It will be one of millions upon millions of ICE vehicles built per year through the 2020s and into the 2030s.
For me personally, if they make a 7 seat Grenadier in a few years, I'll buy one. For day to day, our family will use an EV when they make a reasonably affordable and practical 7 seater EV and the Grenadier on remote trips.
ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
I think it will be regional and we will see legislation that shifts focus to population centres. As in, it might not be allowable to drive an ICE rig in Toronto, but in Sioux Lookout in the North, ICE will still be allowed; this is what happened when the government mandated emissions testing on vehicles. They initially wanted "all cars" but eventually, cars registered outside of the major population areas (i.e. people who live in Northern Ontario) are allowed to skip the emissions tests (at least they were, it's been 10 years since I've lived there).
Same deal for ICE Grens - you won't see many of them in New York or Toronto in 2035, as EVs will be all the rage -- but get out of town a bit, and ICE won't be going away anytime soon in rural areas unless something magnificent happens with hydrogen very soon. And I wouldn't hold my breath - when I look at how much pressure has been on Governments from the EV crowd for years, and they are just now getting reasonably good at putting chargers into new infrastructure, with far-off promises of retrofitting existing roads, I think any major shifts in commercial/rural power generation for vehicles is farther away than 2035, especially with the materials context previously posted.
In short, I'm not worried about an ICE Gren getting 20 solid years of convenient use in an Overlanding context, assuming the other bits last that long.
SkiWill
Well-known member
I would say that is actually the far bigger risk than availability of gasoline in 20 years. This is a brand new car company which may or may not be supporting vehicles and having parts availability in 20 years. Granted, we may not really be able to afford that gasoline in 20 years beyond the weekend car show drive, but I don't know many vehicles that after a 20 year Overland service life are good for much more than a car show cruise or endless repairs or full restoration.
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nickw
Adventurer
To your last point there - my main concern is complexity and easy of maintenance, we are not talking vintage Landcruisers here or even modern domestics pickups, the BMW stuff is notoriously difficult to work on when it comes to things like timing chains, turbo's, water pumps, etc. although I am not super familiar with the B58 platform.
With that said I'm the first person to come to the defense of modern rigs and while complex, are GENERALLY very reliable for daily use and typical useful life, I've had nothing but good luck from our VW's, BMW's and Audi's.....but use case with those and design life are pretty limited relative to a hardcore expedition rig, when we start talking 10/15/20+ years and rebuild cycles, IMO it starts to fall outside of use case for BMW engine/trans design parameters.
If it was me and I was in it for the long haul, I'd be doing all the research I could and convincing myself that the B58 platform was a) reliable for the time period I'd want to keep the vehicle and b) I knew what the shortcomings were and knew the fixes.
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ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
I'm fully in agreement with what you've written. At www.theineosforum.com we've had some good chats about the B58; so far it seems to be pretty reliable in other platforms, but the main issues that the community has identified so far are the location of the timing chain and the fact that it's plastic. The plastic worries some folks; I'm less worried as I've got a motorbike with plastic bits inside the timing chain mechanism and it's been flawless so, properly designed, it's not an issue. But the timing chain sandwiched between the firewall and the engine mean it could be a big lift to do that service. And, I think as we all know, difficult and/or expensive maintenance is often skipped maintenance. At least it isn't a regular part that needs to be replaced -- once ever 60-100,000 kms, I would guess -- but when the time comes it MUST be done, and that won't be easy. Beyond that, there are a smattering of complaints about the valve cover gaskets, and a rare (but not rare enough that it's unheard of) coolant loss issue that has yet to be identified. And, right up with the Timing Chain are these solenoids that operate BMW's version of Variable Valve Timing that sometimes go wrong, and those are a headache to fix (but how much of a headache will depend on how much room is in the engine bay).
On that note, the Gren does look promising in that it's got a lot of room under the hood. It's not like a lot of modern cars where every cubic inch has been maximized for space. I think, from what I've seen and read, it should be fairly straightforward to drop in a totally different power plant if one was so inclined, and I think we'll likely see quite a bit of that in 5-10 years time.
My guess is the tune is to bump the torque just off idle which is often very useful in this type of vehicle. BMW has quite a bit of tuning ability for different use cases with the variable valve timing and precise fuel control built into the drivetrain management.
I've seen engines BMW touted as non-interference bend valves over the years when operated with failed timing chain guides an vanos units out of spec. Preventative maintenance is key in keeping these engines rolling for decades to come.
I don't know, contortionist is just a longstanding prerequisite to be a bmw technician.
I actually have faith the BMW drivetrain is unlikely to be taking these things out of service. I could be a bit biased as a former BMW technician who's currently driving a 40 year old BMW vehicle with a 30 year old drivetrain.
The biggest change to the driveline in keeping my older BMW drivetrain on the road was actually pulling the motor down swapping rods out and bumping the compression a bit to make up for ethanol fuel as only filling it with premium ethanol free was far too limiting travel wise around 2015.
nickw
Adventurer
Beemers from 30 years ago relative to todays Beemers is like comparing 1980's Mercedes to the early 2000's.....same brand, some of the same concepts but focus on performance and bougie amenities vs ease of maintenance and relative simplicity.
Older BMW drivelines require staying ahead on maintenance just like the new BMW drivelines. I generally explain owners should maintain these as you would an aircraft inspecting on a schedule and focusing on replacing bits BEFORE they fail, rather than waiting for a failure to begin the process.
SkiWill
Well-known member
Might as well just buy a Land Rover if you're willing to put that much effort and expense into maintenance. Half joking and half serious, but that's what I do with my Land Rover, and it works, but I'm willing to put up with it because it's more comfortable and family friendly than a Jeep with more usable payload and at the time I bought my LR4, I could buy 3 LR4s for the cost of one 200 Series Land Cruiser.
The only saving grace, in my opinion, on the B58 motor is that Toyota selected it for the Supra. That means that they have a lot of confidence in it. However, the Supra is also about the antithesis of applications as the intended use of a Grenadier, so I'm still skeptical. Since a 7 seater isn't the first product offering from the Grenadier, I won't get to be a beta tester for this application. Hopefully there will be a 7 seater soon and there will be enough experience with the B58 that I could be confident in making a purchase.
4Run'nOnEmpty
Member
the b58 is an interference engine from what i've been told
SkiWill
Well-known member
There are no firm dates at this time. From their website they say full pricing and orders open early 2023, so I guess that depends on your definition of "early." Deliveries maybe late 2023? Realistically, I don't expect to see these in the US or Canada before 2024, but that's just my opinion as an engineer in an unrelated field trying to work through a world of totally jacked up supply chains.
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