Genesis Electrified GV70 Review 2024
Written by John McCann
Quick overview
Pros
- Limited model line-up with plenty of standard kit
- Comfortable, quiet cabin
- Boost button is a fun party trick
Cons
- Not quite as luxurious as German rivals
- Apple CarPlay and Android Auto aren't wireless
- Not the most fun to drive (boost button aside)
Overall verdict on the Genesis Electrified GV70
“The Genesis Electrified GV70 is a well-equipped, premium SUV with a simple one-trim, one-powertrain configuration which takes the hassle out of deciding what to go for. Quiet, comfortable and with enough poke when needed, it’s a fabulous alternative to the established players in the luxury SUV market.”
The Genesis Electrified GV70 provides an alternative in the premium, fully electric SUV market. It goes head-to-head with the BMW iX3, Jaguar I-Pace and Mercedes EQC, which means the luxury brand of the Hyundai and Kia family has its work cut out from the off.
With prices starting from around £65,000, it’s considerably more than its petrol-powered twin (the standard GV70, which starts at £42,370), so thank goodness there’s plenty included as standard. It does mean it’s on-par with the aforementioned iX3 and EQC however, so remains competitive in its luxury fully electric SUV niche.
Based very much on the combustion engine Genesis GV70, there’s not a lot to identify the difference between the two from the outside as the electric version borrows its entire body shape from its sibling. The only minor tweaks are the filled-in front grille, aero wheels and lack of exhaust at the rear.
It’s not the most striking of EVs - its smaller sibling, the Genesis GV60 has sharper, sportier looks - but it offers alternative styling to what’s being pumped out of Germany. It’s different at least, and that means it can turn the odd head as onlookers try and work out what it is as the Genesis brand is still in its infancy in the UK.
Genesis wants to keep the whole car purchasing and ownership journey as simple as possible too, so the Electrified GV70 comes in just one trim, with the one all-wheel-drive, dual motor powertrain. There are a few exterior and interior colours to pick from, plus larger wheels and a range of additional packs for extra features. You won’t be bombarded with multiple trims and a seemingly endless list of difficult to decipher motors - we’re looking at you, German automakers.
But Genesis goes further, chucking in a five-year warranty along with five years of servicing, roadside assistance, courtesy car, and map and over-the-air software updates. Again, it just wants to get you on the road, and we like that.
The result is a mid-size SUV with a 77.4kWh battery producing a claimed WLTP range of 283 miles, top speed of 146 mph and a 0-62 mph time of 4.8 seconds - not bad for a vehicle that weighs more than two tons. Press the boost button, and that time drops to 4.2 seconds.
Inside you’ll find a comfortable, quiet cabin with plenty of space for driver and passengers alike. It may not be quite to the same quality as its Audi and Mercedes rivals, but it still has a premium finish which makes it a nice place to be.
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Is the Genesis Electrified GV70 right for you?
For those after a spacious, comfortable and premium electric SUV and fancy something a little bit different to the EVs coming out of Germany, the Genesis Electrified GV70 offers alternative styling and a simplified purchasing and ownership journey which lets you get on with your life.
It’s not the sportist of electric SUVs, nor does it offer the most space in its class, but the overall package is comprehensive which gives you decent bang for your buck.
What’s the best Genesis Electrified GV70 model/engine to choose?
Ah, well this is an easy one. The Genesis Electrified GV70 comes in just one trim - Sport - and has just the one drivetrain - an all-wheel-drive, dual motor setup capable of producing 490 PS (360kW) and 700NM of torque.
If you don’t want the stock Alta White colour there are ten others available at an additional cost, plus 20-inch wheels, Nappa leather interior and a variety of equipment packs are also available as optional extras. The Innovation Pack is pricey at £3,620, but includes plenty of additional tech including a heads-up display, upgraded cluster display and a variety of driving and parking aids. If your budget can stretch, it’s well worth the addition.
What other cars are similar to the Genesis Electrified GV70?
When it comes to price, the BMW iX, Jaguar I-Pace and Mercedes-Benz EQC are three electric SUVs offering similar size, space and range. If you’re looking for something a little kinder on the bank balance, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Skoda Enyaq iV and Nissan Ariya start at around £20,000 less.
Comfort and design: Genesis Electrified GV70 interior
“A premium cabin with traditional switches and dials makes this EV simple to understand and easy to enjoy.”
Inside the Genesis Electrified GV70 and, like with the exterior, you’d be hard pushed to realise you were in a fully electric car. Sure there’s a large, letterbox central display which sits atop the dash, but there are plenty of smartly laid out buttons and dials for fast, safe access to things like the climate controls and navigation screen.
There’s no whimsical crystal-ball style gear selector or bright yellow ‘boost’ button of the more playful GV60, with the Electrified GV70 offering a more traditional cabin experience.
It’s resulted in a sensibly laid out cabin, with core controls easy to find. Even the buttons on the steering wheel are labelled clearly and are easy to press, even if the overall look may be a touch on the cheap side. The electric GV70 doesn’t miss out on a boost button, but it’s more subtly located at the base of the steering.
You’ll be pleased with the spacious, roomy seats in the front which hug you a little tighter when you hit the boost button or switch to Sport mode to provide additional support from the bolsters.
There’s plenty of head and leg room in front and rear, although those over six feet in the back may feel their hair graze the headliner. The rear seats can be reclined a little though, which helps with headroom.
The middle seat of the seat bench is narrow and the floor isn’t flat with a slight transmission tunnel bump (even though this is an EV) which makes foot placement just a touch trickier if you have three abreast.
We also liked the smart mood lighting in the door arms and around the dash and centre console, although the armrests on the doors are a little awkward with a small padded area which isn’t quite big enough to comfortably rest your arm for a long period.
Quality and finish
There’s smart stitching and accented trim on the dash and seats providing a luxury look and feel. Lower down you will find some scratchy plastic in a handful of places, but generally not in view.
While the cabin does have a premium finish, a few of the controls and buttons look and feel a little cheap, which means it doesn’t quite hit the same heights as interiors from Audi or Mercedes. The row of shortcut buttons (for Map, Nav, Radio etc) on the centre console don’t have quite enough travel to them and thus feel cheap to the touch, which detracts ever so slightly from the experience.
The seats are supremely comfortable, with great padding and support and we found build quality inside to be pretty solid throughout.
Infotainment: Touchscreen, USB, nav and stereo in the Genesis Electrified GV70
While the inside of the Electrified GV70 may not have the modern, minimalist aesthetic of many EVs today, there’s no shortage of screens.
The sizeable 14.5-inch infotainment display stands proudly atop the dash, and while it is a touchscreen it’s set further back here, which means you have to really learn forward to tap with your finger.
Genesis has realised this, and provided a circular control dial on the centre console which you can twist, click and tilt to move around the interface - much like BMW’s iDrive control.
Both inputs work well, and the system is one of the more responsive we’ve used with swift load times when moving between screens. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are supported, but wireless connection is not.
That’s a little frustrating considering the cost of the Electrified GV70, and it means you’ll need to dig out a USB cable to get the phone mirroring to work. Once connected it does work well and the systems take advantage of the large display. If you’re navigating via your phone, directions won’t appear in the cluster display or HUD - only the built-in nav can send instructions to these places, which is a shame.
You get two USB ports in the front as well as a wireless phone charger, and there are a further two ports in the back for rear-seat passengers to use.
If you opt for the Innovation pack (a £3,620 optional extra) the cluster display is upgraded from an 8-inch offering to a much more impressive 12.3-inch screen. This includes the option to switch on a 3D depth effect which creates a bizarre look to the screen. It certainly won’t be for everyone, and we quickly turned it off as we found it more distracting than anything.
The 15-speaker Lexicon stereo (a £1,010 option) provides excellent sound, with deep, pumping bass, crisp spoken word and pleasing instrumentals. Whatever your acoustic preference, it’ll sound great in the Electrified GV70. This extra also includes active noise cancelling, which sees a series of small speakers placed around the headliner which emit inverted sound waves to cancel out sounds from outside the cabin. Our test car had this included, and the cabin is a quiet cocoon on busy city streets.
Space and practicality: Genesis Electrified GV70 boot space
The Genesis Electrified GV70 measures 4,715mm long, 1,995mm wide and 1,630mm tall, placing it firmly in the mid-size SUV sphere.
What that means on the inside is a pleasing amount of space. There’s plenty of head and leg room in the front, and space is pretty good in the back too, although as we mentioned the middle seat is a little narrow, the floor isn’t entirely flat and those over six feet may find their hair grazing the headliner. If the middle seat isn’t in use you can fold down an armrest which houses a couple of cup holders, but there’s no through-loading available.
You can get heated rear seats and built-in window blinds if you pay for one of the optional equipment packs, but a nice little feature included as standard is a coat hook on each of the B pillars, making it easy to hang a coat.
There are seat-back magazine pockets, while door bins are well sized and can take a large bottle of drink. The glove box is also a reasonable size, and there’s more storage space under the armrest in the centre console. In the front you also get two cup holders and a separate area with two USB-A ports and a wireless charging pad for your phone, all in the centre console.
Boot space comes in at 503 litres, which is on-par with the Mercedes EQC and BMW iX3, but smaller than the non-electric GV70 which has 542 litres as there’s no batteries taking up space.
The load area is flat, making it easy to slide large items in and out without having to lift them over a lip. If you fold the rear seats down (they are split 60:40), luggage space swells to 1,678 litres. The rear seats lie almost flat, but there is a small lip between them and the boot floor, which can mean items get stuck when dragging them back out. There’s space under the floor for charging cables, and you also get a 12V socket and 3-pin plug in the boot.
You do get some additional storage up front, with the Electrified GV70 featuring a 25 litre frunk - but it’s so shallow you’ll get a charging cable and not much else in there.
Handling and ride quality: What is the Genesis Electrified GV70 like to drive?
“Comfortable and quiet, the Electrified GV70 cruises along nicely, but there’s a powerful punch at the push of the boost button for a blast of exhilaration.”
The Genesis Electrified GV70 is easy to drive. The hassle-free interface means there’s no confusing options, and there’s plenty of power under foot to get you where you need to go.
The suspension does well to absorb most road imperfections, although you do get some feedback through the wheel on rougher terrain and larger potholes will still cause a bounce. It’s comfortable though, and on most roads it glides along reasonably well.
Steering is light, and in Eco and Comfort driving modes not particularly sharp. Switch to sport and steering inputs are a little more responsive - but this isn’t a car built for a sporty driving feel.
Switching to Sport mode (or pressing the boost button on the steering wheel) sees the seats squeeze your sides as the bolsters get pumped up for a more racing style feel.
The boost button is a fun addition, giving you 10 seconds of additional power. That translates into a 0-62mph time of 4.2 seconds, or a 50-75mph time of just 2.5 seconds on the occasions you need to make a speedy overtake.
Driving in Eco mode will get you the best range, and it provides enough power for day-to-day driving. So much so, you’ll likely find you rarely have to move out of Eco to Comfort or Sport.
While the Electrified GV70 isn’t billed as a rugged, off-roading vehicle it does come with a handful of terrain modes (snow, mud, sand), 174mm of ground clearance, and a hill descent mode in case you find yourself off the beaten track.
You can turn on what Genesis calls “Active Sound Design” in the settings menu via the touch screen. This gives you audible feedback when you press the accelerator with three soundscapes to pick from: Futuristic, S-Engine and E-Motor.
Futuristic was our favourite as it made it sound like we were in The Jetsons. The S-Engine sound felt a little corny as it mimicked the sound of a traditional ICE powertrain, while the E-Motor sound was a more subtle whir. The good news is you don’t have to turn it on if you’d prefer silence.
What motors and batteries are available in the Genesis Electrified GV70?
Genesis has kept things really simple here. There’s one trim (Sport), one battery (77.4kWh) and one all-wheel drive electric powertrain. It means you get a 180kW electric motor at the front, and another 180kW motor at the rear for a combined power output of 360kW (which is 490 PS) and a maximum torque of 700Nm.
That will get you a top speed of 146mph and from 0-62mph in 4.8 seconds, but if you use the boost button you can drop that to a spritely 4.2 seconds.
Maximum electric range in the Genesis Electrified GV70
The official range figure for the Electrified GV70 is 283 miles from the 77.4kWh battery. In reality you’ll get around 250 miles during the warmer months, but during the winter we saw this drop to around 220-230 with a mix of driving as the cold weather reduces the efficiency of the batteries.
The BMW iX3 has a range of up to 285 miles, while the EQC only goes as far as 254 miles on a single charge, so the Electrified GV70 is well placed when it comes to range.
Refinement and noise levels
There’s good sound isolation inside the GV70, and we were able to cruise calmly at 70mph with only limited road and wind sound. It provides a welcoming cocoon for you to enjoy and means you don’t need the radio turned up to a high volume to be able to comfortably listen.
If you add on the premium audio system option (£1,010), active noise cancelling is included, with a series of small speakers located around the headline playing inverted sound waves to cancel out sounds from outside the cabin.
There’s no engine noise, but you can opt for a synthetic sound to be played in the cabin if you want some audible feedback when you press down on the accelerator. You don’t have to have it turned on however, if you prefer more peace and quiet.
Safety equipment: How safe is the Genesis Electrified GV70?
The GV70 comes with plenty of safety tech included as standard, including SCC (Smart Cruise Control) with Stop & Start, HDA (Highway Driving Assist), rear BCA (Blind-Spot Collision-Avoidance Assist), LKA (Lane Keeping Assist), FCA (Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist) (Car/Pedestrian/Bicycle), FCA-J (Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist - Junction Turning) and LFA (Lane Following Assist). Plus, more driving aids are available as optional equipment.
There’s a number of airbags too, with driver and passenger airbags, front thorax and pelvis airbags, curtain airbags, driver knee airbag, and a centre side (front) airbag.
The Genesis Electrified GV70 has been awarded a five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating.
Charging times: How much does it cost to charge the Genesis Electrified GV70?
“The Electrified GV70 comes equipped with rapid charging which can replenish 70% of charge in as little as 18 minutes. At home, a 7.6kW charger will take around 10 hours for a full charge and cost you between £20 and £25.”
If you have a 7.6kW wallbox charger at home, a full charge of the Genesis Electrified GV70 77.4kWh battery will take around 10 hours. However, if you find yourself at a fast charging station the figures are rather good. A full charge equates to between £20 and £25, depending on your electricity tariff.
The Electrified GV70 supports 400V and 800V charging, which means when connected to a 350kW charger you can replenish the battery from 10% to 80% (over 150 miles of range) in as little as 18 minutes. At a more standard 50kW charger, the 10-80% charge will take around 73 minutes. Charging at these stations will cost you considerably more than your at-home rate.
You can charge the GV70 from a traditional three-pin home plug socket, but it will take over 34 hours, so it is best avoided if you can.
The charging port is well hidden in the grill on the front of the Electrified GV70 - we walked round the car twice before we found it. Pressing the cover to pop it out we found it was stiff to open and felt a little cheap, as it doesn’t fold out smoothly. However, the front location makes plugging in at charging stations easier.
How reliable is a Genesis Electrified GV70?
As the Genesis Electrified GV70 is relatively new to the market we can’t give an accurate idea of how reliable it is. Genesis is part of the Hyundai and Kia family, two brands with good reputations, with both finishing in the top 10 of the HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index in 2022.
The Electrified GV70 also comes with five years of warranty, servicing, roadside assistance, courtesy car, and map and over the air software updates, which shows Genesis is pretty confident it’ll perform for a while.
Insurance groups and costs
The Genesis GV70 Electric is currently in insurance group 50, which is right at the top of the band and higher than its petrol-powered namesake, which ranges from group 41 to 44. It means it will be relatively expensive to insure, as electric cars are still seen as specialised vehicles by insurers.
VED car tax: What is the annual road tax on a Genesis Electrified GV70?
Electric cars - including the Genesis Electrified GV70 - are currently exempt from road tax, meaning you could save £180/year compared to a petrol or diesel car. That’s set to change from 2025, however, meaning you’ll pay the same VED as the driver of a petrol vehicle from then.
How much should you be paying for a used Genesis Electrified GV70?
“The Genesis Electrified GV70 starts at £65,105 and comes with plenty of kit as standard. There aren’t too many available second hand at the moment, but prices currently start around £57,000.”
There are a handful of second hand Electrified GV70 on the market, but the selection is limited so you may not find what you want. Second hand prices are currently starting around £57,000, roughly £8,000 less than a new model.
As we’ve already mentioned, a new Genesis GV70 Electric starts at £65,105 and there’s just one trim and powertrain, which keeps things simple. You get a heap of kit included, and the optional extras include paint colours, bigger wheels and a selection of additional equipment packages.
If you select everything and choose the most premium paint and interior options, the price tops out at just under £80,000.
Trim levels and standard equipment
The Electrified GV70 is only available in one trim, Sport, which starts at £65,105.
Unsurprisingly this trim level is very well equipped with a raft of standard equipment including dual front LED headlamps, outside rear mirrors electrical adjustment, heated and folding, front brake ventilated DISC, 19-inch alloy wheels, Temporary Mobility Kit (TMK), leather steering wheel, paddle shifter (lever type), leather seats, electric seat adjustment (driver & passenger, driver seat with memory function), electric lumbar support (driver), driver & passenger airbag, front thorax & pelvis + curtain airbag, driver knee airbag, center side (front) airbag, rain sensor, SCC (Smart Cruise Control) with Stop & Start, HDA (Highway Driving Assist), rear BCA (Blind-Spot Collision-Avoidance Assist), LKA (Lane Keeping Assist), FCA (Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist) (Car/Pedestrian/Bicycle), FCA-J (Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist - Junction Turning), LFA (Lane Following Assist), 14.5-inch Navi Screen + Dab Radio + Phone Mirroring + Genesis Connected, 8-inch Dashboard Cluster TFT Display, Front & Rear Parking Sensors with Button, RVM (Rear View Camera) with Dynamic Guidelines on Screen, Smart Key & Button Start, Front Air Condition with Dual Zone Adjustment, Heat Pump, Battery Saver & Battery Heating System, Boost Mode, 400 V / 800 V Dual Charging Technology, eTerrain Mode, i-Pedal & Smart Regenerative Braking, fingerprint reader authentication.
Ask the heycar experts: common questions
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