HELLO GENESIS GV70 + RANGE ROVER GOES BACK TO THE SOURCE + GOODBYE MAZDA CX- 60 & BMW i7 & JAGUAR F-PACE SVR
This Korean EV has refinement Crewe would be happy with.
Hello
Let’s be honest: a six-month or even one-year test in a BMW, Mercedes or Audi is unlikely to shake out any serious flaws in the car or the networks that support it. The German premium brands have the construction of their cars and the cosseting of their customers so well sorted that glitches are rare, though they make great copy when they do occur.
Running a Genesis feels fractionally riskier. It’s not exactly a start-up: the colossal Hyundai group has been building cars under this luxury imprint since 2015, using systems and knowledge from their wildly popular mainstream models. In those eight years they’ve sold just over a million of them.
Genesis has only been offered in the UK since 2021, and although a small network of dealers is coming next year its retail and support operation is largely virtual, involving direct, fixed-price sales, and delivery and collection for test drives and servicing.
All that might make the GV70 Electrified sound very appealing: a luxury SUV built using bits familiar from the brilliant Kia EV6, among others, with no oleaginous dealer to haggle with nor distant showroom to trek to. But building cars to compete with those German brands is really hard, and non-European luxury brands have struggled to compete with the home teams in Europe, either growing slowly and staying relatively niche like Lexus, or failing like Infiniti.
The name implies that this car might not be off to the best start. The smaller GV60 is also electric, but isn’t described as ‘electrified’ as it was designed as an EV from the outset, using the same E-GMP platform as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. This GV70 Electrified is an electric version of the combustion-powered GV70. Retro-engineered EVs aren’t always the best and most resolved cars, but given the fossil-powered GV70’s good reviews and my own very happy experience running an EV6 long-term test car which shares its battery, motor and control systems with this car, I’m hopeful. The only immediately obvious compromise is the lack of a frunk.
Exterior design? You’ll decide for yourself, but I’m not wowed by the sligh
