ROAD TEST No 5588
Genesis GV60
Nascent Korean premium brand’s first EV arrives in fast, if not furious, crossover form
MODEL TESTED SPORT PLUS
Price £65,405 ● Power 483bhp ● Torque 516lb ft ● 0-60mph 3.8sec ● 30-70mph in fourth na ● Economy 2.9mpkWh ● CO2 emissions 0g/km ● 70-0mph 46.5m
PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON
We like
• Luxurious interior and superb usability
• Prodigious power
• Good efficiency and rapid charging
We don’t like
• Chassis lacks some sharpness
• Expensive on finance
• Limited EV route planning
The Genesis brand has been (back) in Europe for about a year now, and so far its models have been fairly conventional. They are good looking and decent to drive, but the range has been wanting for something to truly distinguish it.
It would have made sense for Genesis to launch as an electric brand. Instead, it has offered only petrol and diesel engines until now. It does plan to go electric-only by 2030 and the new GV60 electric crossover is the first step towards that goal.
The fundamentals immediately look good. The GV60 uses the same E-GMP platform as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6, two of our favourite medium-sized EVs. Genesis says it’s here for the long haul, and it has two more EVs – electric versions of the G80 saloon and GV70 crossover – waiting in the wings. It plans to build the brand gradually, though, relying on both the strength of its products and its friendlier, more personal approach to selling its cars.
That said, it has quite a lot of brand building to do. In July, it sold just 62 cars. Is the GV60 going to supercharge those sales? The recipe of Kia EV6 with a generous dose of premium appeal sounds like a good start. Let’s see how it stacks up.
DESIGN AND ENGINEERING
★★★★★
The GV60 is the third car to use Hyundai and Kia’s dedicated E-GMP electric car platform, after the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6. That bodes well, because in those cars the associated technology has already been proven to use energy efficiently and recharge rapidly, and the Kia in particular demonstrates that it can handle pleasingly well.
The only choice of battery in the GV60 is the familiar 77.4kWh pack. Annoyingly, the group is taking a page out of Tesla’s book by being coy about the exact capacity. So 77.4kWh is the gross capacity, but Genesis, Kia and Hyundai will not disclose the usable capacity.
Three motor set-ups are available, with the single- and basic dual-motor options familiar from the EV6 and Ioniq 5. We’re testing the Sport Plus range-topper, which has identical 241bhp motors on each axle, for totals of 483bhp and 516lb ft. For the time being, these are unique to the GV60 because the EV6 GT has an even more powerful motor on its rear axle.
It’s a fast car, then, but also an expensive one, which makes us wonder what Genesis can add to an already tasty recipe. Mechanically, it’s nothing revolutionary. Compared with lesser E-GMP cars, there are some additional features and some uprated hardware, such as active noise cancelling, adaptive suspension, a rear limited-slip differential and four-piston brakes.