2023 Genesis GV60 Review _ Neo-luxury in EV form

Genesis has only been a standalone brand in the United States since the 2017 model year, and they're introducing a third SUV for 2023, the GV60. It's a little smaller than their other SUVs, I'd call it a crossover, and it's fully electric, which is a first for Genesis. The GV60 shares architecture with the Kia EV6 and the Hyundai IONIQ 5. All three of them ride on the eGMP, or Electric Global Modular Platform. This is a really good thing because it was a dedicated battery electric platform from the start, so you're not going to encounter some of the compromises with these three cars that you might with an EV that's been retrofitted to a pre-existing vehicle structure. We've done full video reviews of the 2022 Hyundai IONIQ 5 and the 2022 Kia EV6, so check those out for more information. And, quick reminder, you can now sell a car 100% online with CarGurus. All you have to do is plug in your information, we'll source an offer from our network of dealers, we'll pick up your car, and we'll make sure you get paid. You may recall that the IONIQ 5 has very distinctive styling. This, to me, looks a little less aggressively modern, but we do still have some funky styling details like this chrome zigzag over here. It's muscular, but it's still distinctly Genesis until we get to the wheels. These 21-inchers come with this Performance All-Wheel Drive trim. They're a lot more dramatically stylized than the 20-inch wheels that we get on the base trim, the Advanced All-Wheel Drive, and I really just don't know about these wheels. I feel like this vehicle was made to fit in with the GV70, while these wheels were made to look futuristic and angular like the IONIQ 5. Both are logical references for the GV60, but when you put them together, they just don't quite seem to go. Now, among the color options are not one, not two, but three different variations of white. One is the base option, one costs $575, and one costs $1,500, but it does come with a special navy interior. It's a little silly, but I do have to give kudos to Genesis for offering some very fun colors with the GV60, including Hanauma Mint, Atacama Copper, and Sao Paulo Lime. Each of those is a $575 option, as is the Himalayan Gray color that we have today. The interior is nice. Sure, the quilting is a little cheesy, but it's kind of cute how it matches the key. The flat floor and floating console are cool, and this single curved panel hosting both the 12.3-inch infotainment screen and the 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster contributes to the open feeling. And check this out, the crystal sphere. That's actually what it's called. It offers mood lighting when the car is off and flips to reveal the shifter when it's on. Could it also have a primitive fortune-telling function? All signs point to yes. The seats are pretty comfy. They're heated and ventilated in the front, and like a lot of the GV60's user experience, they're very customizable. We've got a thigh extender and inflatable side bolsters in addition to lumbar support. Once you find your perfect position, you can save it to the seat memory and then relax with a nice massage. Visibility out the back is not so good thanks to the spoiler that cuts right across the rear windshield, but we have this little camera view that comes on when you activate a turn signal, and that helps a lot. In his IONIQ 5 video, Matt raved about the way that the sunshade opens up here. It has a cover that slides in both directions. But there's something you should know about Matt. He doesn't really care about sunroofs. I do, and I wish that this moonroof would open. There's great legroom in the rear, plenty of space to have someone over six feet tall in both the front and back at the same time. We have 24 cubic feet of cargo volume behind the rear seats, only slightly less than the Audi Q4 e-tron, and we have some really neat storage options in the cabin like this glove box that's a drawer and cargo nets underneath the console to help keep things in place. This thing inside the door, over here it controls the mirrors. On that side, it's a scent diffuser. The car is really fun to drive. It handles much better than you would expect for something of this size, and especially something of this weight. It's over 4,500 pounds. I really love that you can feel the difference right away when you switch into sport mode. Lackluster sport mode is a real pet peeve of mine. I mean, why even bother? Here, it makes an immediate adjustment to a stiffer suspension, heavier steering, and more sensitive throttle. If you want to get even a little more out of the car, you could use this button on the steering wheel to engage boost mode. That will increase the power output, the torque, and the acceleration responsiveness just for 10 seconds. Of course, you could keep pressing the button over and over, but I don't think you're going to need to. Elsewhere on the steering wheel are the flappy paddles, which you can use to adjust regenerative braking on the fly. Shifting all the way up will activate i-PEDAL for a true one-pedal driving mode. You can also go into the settings to change the smart regeneration system to faster, moderate, or slower deceleration. I'm not usually a huge fan of one-pedal driving, but it does work really well here, and in fact, I have to say the brakes and the throttle are nicely linear across the board, and it just makes for a really comfortable, fluid driving experience. The GV60 was initially set to come with a base rear-wheel-drive model, but today, as is, all-wheel drive is standard. As a general rule, all-wheel-drive EVs will have a minimum of two motors—one for the front axle and one for the rear axle. In the advanced trim GV60, the two combine to produce 314 horsepower and 446 pound-feet of torque. In the performance version, the one we have, they make 483 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque. You do sacrifice a little bit of range for that extra power, but it only bumps it down from 248 to 235 miles. For me, 13 miles for 170 horses—that's a trade that I would happily make. What about you? Money, no object. Which GV60 are you going for? You might want a little more info before making the decision. For example, maybe you'd like to know how long it's going to take to charge. Well, every GV60 comes with a 77.4-kilowatt-hour battery, just like the IONIQ 5. So at 350 kilowatts, it should be able to charge from 10 to 80 percent in just 18 minutes, and you can manage the charging pretty closely. You might choose, for example, to keep it under an 80 percent maximum if you're worried about the long-term life of the battery, or maybe you'd like to reduce the flow of the charge if you're worried about tripping a circuit breaker at home. Between the active noise canceling that Genesis has given the GV60 and the simple fact that this is an electric vehicle, this crossover is very quiet, and if you're new to EVs, it might feel almost creepy. Aside from blasting your music, you can deal with that using this Active Sound Design setting, which lets you pick futuristic G-engine or E-motor sounds to accompany your driving. The sounds are a little goofy, but they're also kind of fun. They'll come through the standard Bang & Olufsen stereo system. You do need USB-C cords to run Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I found the infotainment system to be pretty intuitive. The choices Genesis made about which functions should get both hard buttons and digital controls felt reasonable to me. I particularly enjoyed the 3D settings screen, but you can also get to things like lighting from the core menu. This little touch slider on the steering wheel lets you switch between widgets on the dash or dismiss them all together, which is pretty neat. What's super cool, if in fact it works, is the combination of Face Connect and Fingerprint Authentication. In theory, Face Connect will let you into the car, and then Fingerprint Authentication will let you start and drive it all without your keys. I say in theory because I haven't been able to test it. You need two keys to set that up, and I only have one. There are a lot of standard safety features, including lane keeping and lane following assist, automatic emergency braking, blind spot and forward collision avoidance, driver attention monitor, and adaptive cruise control with lane centering. The 2023 Genesis GV60 starts at $58,890 for the base trim, the advanced all-wheel drive. If you want the performance all-wheel drive, the one that we have, that starts at $67,890. Again, you sacrifice a bit of range, but you get substantially more power, plus an adaptive suspension system. Whichever trim you choose, you don't need to worry about navigating a long list of options packages, because there aren't any. Everything is included in the base price for the trim. So this one, for example, comes to $69,560, and that's a price we easily could have calculated ourselves. We just have to take the base trim price and add in the $1,095 destination fee and the $575 for the color. Like Kia and Hyundai, Genesis has one of the best warranty offerings in the biz. The GV60 comes with 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain coverage, 5-year, 60,000-mile limited warranty, and 3 years or 36,000 miles of complementary scheduled maintenance. That's very competitive, especially for a luxury automaker. If you haven't been watching this space closely, it might surprise you to hear the Genesis GV60 has several rivals worth noting. If you're interested in one, you'll of course want to compare it to its corporate cousins, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6, which come with varying trade-offs in terms of price, power, and luxury appointments. Check out our videos for more info. If you're looking for a little more performance, you might consider the Mustang Mach-E GT, and if it's luxury you're after, you might want to look at something like the Audi Q4 e-tron, the Tesla Model Y, the Cadillac Lyric, the Mercedes-Benz EQB, or the Volvo XC40 Recharge. All of these either start at or quickly climb into the GV60's price range. Audi, Cadillac, Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz all have a little more luxury cachet just by virtue of having been in the marketplace longer, but if you're someone who's looking at an EV seriously right now, it might be because you consider yourself something of an early adopter, and if that's the case, why not extend that philosophy to the brand? One important note before we say goodbye. I mentioned earlier that the GV60 uses a dedicated EV platform, the e-GMP, which has been drawing a lot of praise lately. It's just good to know that some of the competitors I mentioned, like the Audi and the Mustang, also have their own dedicated EV platforms. Some of the other ones, like the Volvo, share their platforms with pre-existing non-electric vehicles, something to be aware of. Thanks for watching. Head over to CarGurus.com to read our full written review of the 2023 Genesis GV60, but before you go, please subscribe to the YouTube channel, and remember, check back soon because we'll be driving something else next week.