Not wanting to be an apologist for Ineos, but if you add any weight (boxes, etc) to the seat backs they will squash flat quite easily.
Surely, the responsible choices are : You're either going to have the seat delete and a full cargo barrier, seats up and a half cargo barrier, or full on dog crate?
Yes, given the Grenadier was a blank piece of paper design, it's hard to see why the batteries could be lowered/laid on their sides for a full flat floor.
More honest than Harry Melcalfe, who seems to have been initially happy to gloss over all the faults to ensure he stayed "on side"?
Under normal circumstances, wouldn't a major manufacturer sack someone in the PR/engineering team for giving a vehicles with such faults to a key motoring journalist?
Thanks DCPU for the info that the seats will squish - that makes sense. Seems a bit silly to design a seat that doesn't fold flat until the headrests are adjusted, but then
still doesn't fold flat. So your statement that they will squish makes sense.
As for the dog box, it's a bit more complex in my situation - I have a 3 year old son, as well as at least one (often two - had to say goodbye to one in August) German Shepherds. My current rig had a 70/30 split rear, and so I took out the 70 section, leaving my son in his carseat on the 30 section, and I built a dog box where the 70 section used to be. The box is fully isolated via grate from my son; in the event of an accident (or a deer/squirrel/other dog on the side of the road they decide to run at!), the box serves the purpose of keeping the dogs separate from my son. You can sort of see how it looks in these photos:
Dogs are on this side; you can see the car seat behind the barrier. The box also flips up and that's where we store dog-related items and rain gear so it's handy.
Plenty of room for the dog(s) - they both used to lie down back there with room to spare, sleeping away the many miles. We had a substantively similar setup in our Jeep - but our Jeep was before the little guy came along!
This system works really well for me, but in an ideal world, I'd like to be able to do both a dog box and a passenger seat - instead of having to "delete" the 70 section of the rear seat, I am hoping to be able to box it in like I currently have done to keep child/dogs separate, but have the seat itself folded flat when the dogs are in there. Then, on the occasion where I have to bring a two-legged passenger, I can flip the seats up and they can use the seat as a seat. Easy to fold flat when I tire of human company and put the dogs back in
Agreed on the design - especially with modern batteries being sealed, there are a lot of orientations that would work.
I think you hit the nail on the head though - Ineos seems to have decided to finish building the plane while flying it; I can't fathom why they'd turn over these vehicles to prominent journalists without addressing the issues, and if those issues are not yet ready to be addressed, they should have waited. These unflattering reviews are not doing them any favours.
