Third Time's The Charm | 2021 Genesis G80

Genesis is one of America's newest luxury brands and, honestly, the one I find most intriguing because Genesis has come so far in such a short

time

, much like its parent company Hyundai. The Genesis experiment began in 2008, when Hyundai created its first Mid model. large luxury sedan, but back then hyundai was trying to go in a different direction than it did today with lexus in the 1980s, they were trying to create luxury vehicles under the hyundais brand but with a sub brand as something else so we had the

genesis

and then we had the full size equus and at some point later hyundai realized that that wasn't really going to work so they decided to split everything up into the

genesis

brand.

Now a lot of people don't realize this, but that had a lot to do with the fact that the Genesis sold incredibly well and that statement doesn't really matter how you want to categorize that first-generation Genesis sedan, whether you want Put it in the same category as the Dodge Charger or the Chrysler 300. It sold well, and whether you want to call it an E-Class or a Five-Series competitor, it still sold well, but without a doubt, the last two generations of the G80 have been solid 5 series e class competitors and that's becoming even more obvious with this now.

Third generation model I guess I should leave out the bad news from the start. I won't be able to drive this on public roads. This is an early production prototype version of the G80 and apparently because of the way it was imported. They can't put plates on it, they can't register it in the US, so it can't be driven on public roads. However, I live on a private road, so we will only be driving it for a short

time

here on a Unfortunately, the private road is not paved, so if you want the full driving experience, unfortunately you will have to wait probably a few months until that I can get my hands on it again, of course, not this particular one, but a different one that is actually correctly. registered in the United States, the first thing you should know about the g80 for

2021

is that this is an almost completely new vehicle, it shares the same wheelbase with the outgoing model, but really none of the structure, any suspension, we have different engines under the hood. a completely different interior new infotainment systems new instrument clusters new active safety systems actually only the eight-speed automatic transmission is the same, but obviously the first thing you'll notice is this striking new design that we first saw in a preview with the facelifted g90 The sedan has this bright Superman grille here with this highlight there, it's definitely more distinctive than what we've seen on the Genesis before.

The other thing that struck me when I parked these two vehicles side by side is how much more refined the g80 is now feels better than the g70 and again the g70 is not very old and is still very competitive in its segment, but the g80 is really moving towards genesis. The other thing that caught my eye when I parked these two vehicles side by side is simply the little things in the design of the g80 the way the hood meets the front quarter panels the way the grille and everything comes together at the front it's definitely a more cohesive design than we've seen from genesis before the new g80 and gv80 release the new genesis Key here on the right This is the Genesis key from the previous generation.

This is from a Genesis G70. It has the Genesis logo right there on the back, like the new key, but the materials are not as premium, it has a rougher finish. there on the front and it feels a little less nice, I guess this key here we also have some new buttons because this key introduces its new remote parking feature, we can lock the vehicle and then we can start it automatically right there by pressing that little button and then we can park and unpark the vehicle so we can press this button right here and God gets closer and closer hopefully he won't hit us let's see if he stops in time oh there we go he stopped that was a risk and then we can press the back button to make it leave the parking spot and there it moves away from us.

It will also park parallel and parallel, so this is different from the system we find in the Hyundai Sonata, for example. Similar to what we find on the Nexo, the interesting thing about these headlights is that the low beams are up here, two modules for the low beams and then the high beams are in a separate module below, so the quad headlights are actually in two separate ones. parts that are completely surrounded by the bumper and side panel. One thing I wish Genesis would change though, this radar cruise control sensor right here in the middle of the grille has the same design as the rest of the grille, but it certainly sticks out a little further than some of the sensors. adaptive cruise control that we find in the German competition and, interestingly, there are more and more vehicles that use the same system that we find in modern Volvos, where it is completely behind the windshield of the vehicle leaving the front completely intact, a touch of Really cool design on the front is the way the hood, grille and side panels come together.

You can see that this side panel is below the level of the hood, giving us a sort of stepped look. right there and this is the line where the hood opens right here the hood comes to this sharp point where it meets the grill. This is kind of a classic design cue that we also see on, for example, some Rolls-Royces, but it's one that not many luxury car makers attempt because getting this seam perfect because it can be seen from so many different angles is quite difficult. At 196.7 inches long, this G80 is a hair longer than ever, but it's still solidly a mid-range model.

The size of a luxury sedan is about two inches longer than a BMW 5 Series, giving us a little more interior space, but three inches shorter than a Volvo S90 Genesis from the start we decided they would fit the car perfectly. European luxury. segments and that means that we don't find vehicles that are half a step larger or front-wheel drive or different than what we find in the German competition, I guess that would be the best way to put it, so we don't find, for example front-wheel drive entries in the genesis line, so their next lexus rx competitor is rear wheel drive like the bmw just in this segment but also perhaps as an alternative to a Genesis G90 because it's almost as big even though it's theoretically a mid-size luxury sedan or the Cadillac line where they have a lot of vehicles that fall between segments.

The design of the turn signals helps tie the front and rear of the g80 together, so we have those dual modules, those four LED beams with the two turn signals in the front, mimicking that we have two turn signals here at the side with some chrome strips. That helps highlight that during the daytime and the rear turn signals wrap from the rear to the side helping to tie everything together Moving towards the rear, we certainly found a strong family resemblance between the G80 and the rest of the Genesis line, again we have those dual modules for the taillights, just like we found for the headlights, actually, I guess technically they are quad lamps because we have separate modules here in the trunk and then separate modules here on the side, the taillights are full LED and there is definitely a 3D.

There's an effect with these taillights that I'm not sure we can actually show you on camera, but they look really cool. Now on the downside, the turn signals are red, not amber if you want them to be. buy, save the amber lamp kit, be sure to click the link below in the description section, you can find all of our t-shirts etc. We also get some styling cues up front, like these superman-style pointy exhaust tips, real gas. flows through them, those aren't fake exhaust tips like we find on modern Audis and then they mimic that style here with this little angle next to the rear view camera under the hood.

We have some big changes for

2021

, there is no longer natural aspiration. Instead of the engines available in the g80, we get an all-new base two-and-a-half-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produces 300 horsepower and 311 pound-feet of torque, replacing both the 5-liter V8 and the 3.3-liter biturbo output. All-new 3.5-liter twin-turbo 6. The V6 is the engine we're looking at right now, producing 375 horsepower and 391 pound-feet of torque, which may not seem like much of an increase over the outgoing 3.3-liter twin-turbo 6. but the way this engine produces its power is a little different, it has a wider power and torque curve so it will definitely be quicker than the previous model and it may not seem like much of an improvement over the old 5 liter either . v8, but this engine is lighter and the car itself is also lighter, it has lost about 275 pounds, so it will probably be faster than the 5 liter v8, although unfortunately we can't test this guy in 0- 60 because I can't get it.

Unfortunately, it goes on the private road we used for 0-60 testing, so it will have to wait until the full review. If you are buying a g80 outside of the United States, in a country that loves diesel, there is also a small diesel engine but it is not too exciting 210 horsepower from 2.2 liters when it comes to active safety genesis ago things a little different than the European competition and a little more like Lexus, we get a lot of active safety technologies standard on the G80, most of which are usually optional on the European competition, the G80 and GV80 are getting the latest generation of these security technologies from genesis.

The G70 and G90 are currently a generation behind, so this one has their Highway Driving Assist version 2, which has more aggressive lane centering and will work in a wider variety of different situations. We also have the adaptive cruise control system now with machine learning to help make it smoother. We also have the latest Genesis autonomous braking system that features pedestrian detection and now intersection assist. That way, if you are turning against traffic, the vehicle will attempt to stop if it detects that a head-on collision is imminent. We also have Blind Spot Collision Avoidance System, which not only detects things in your blind spot, but will also help you avoid crashing. them and inside the car we have new airbag technology, there is an airbag on the inside side of the driver's seat that will deploy between the driver and the front passenger in case it deems necessary to prevent people be surprised.

Front seat comfort. is definitely excellent, this is an improvement over the current generation g80 and interestingly also over the current g90, that's because we have a new driver's seat design that has a little more range of motion than the one we find in that larger luxury sedan, we have the typical four adjustable lumbar support, inflatable side bolsters that extend the thigh cushion, etc., but we also have an inflatable cushion at the bottom of the seat that can basically go up or down. going down, it's like sitting on a medicine ball and slowly inflating or deflating it, quite similar to what we found. on the lexus ls500 and then there's also what they call the ergo motion feature here on the driver's seat which is a separate little button.

You can think of it as the corollary of BMW's multi-contour seats. It's not exactly a front seat massage like we would do. Found on a Lexus LS or the Volvo S90 those are pretty aggressive front seat massage functions, however this is a bit more extensive than what we found on that BMW. It has a series of bladders at the bottom of the seat and in the back cushion that inflate and deflate. to give a kind of massage to the lumbar area and then also a massage to the legs to help maintain circulation. Unfortunately, the passenger seat still doesn't have the same range of motion as the driver's seat, as you can see we have four-way adjustment. lumbar support but we do not have the active massage functionality, the extendable thigh cushion, etc.

Thanks to the g80's extra size compared to some of the European competition, we certainly have a comfortable rear seat area, we probably have about seven inches with that front seat adjusted for me at six feet wide.height Now, when you take a look at the legroom figures, it's important to remember that the G80, like most Genesis models, has front seat rails that move much further back, so if you're a taller driver o For a taller front passenger, you may want to look at this instead of some of the European options because the front seats will move further back thanks to the G80's profile.

I still have plenty of headroom. This is one of the few sedans in the United States. That can actually comfortably seat adults in the back if I lean my head back into the comfortable headrest. Now I have about an inch of headroom left if I move to the middle seat, obviously this is going to be a little less comfortable because the outer seating positions are definitely solidly cube-shaped and I definitely don't have enough room here. for the head, but if I move all the way to the right side of the vehicle, where this front seat was adjusted for a six-foot-five passenger, you can see that I could sit comfortably here.

We've got plenty of room to play soccer, plus a feature we're starting to see on other Genesis models. We have little controls here on the front passenger seat, so that way you can move that front. Seat further back and you can really see how much that seat moves back, there's plenty of legroom up front, apparently there are a number of specs we're still waiting for on the G80. One of them is boot volume. I suspect it will be a little more than 16 cubic feet. It looks like a pretty big trunk. The hinges take up some of that space in the trunk, but they are very well hidden behind those carpeted sections and we have a spare tire under the load floor - that's something we don't find in many European competitions.

Now I suspect it's possible that this cargo area as a result of that spare tire ends up being a little smaller than part of the euro. options, but if you wanted to remove it, you could put additional things down there, as we see in many luxury cars, we do not find folding rear seat backrests, although there is a ski pass and we have a power trunk lid. oh there's also LED lighting here as we look around the interior keep in mind we're essentially on the top end trim so obviously the lower end trim won't have everything we see here but the first thing you'll notice is this interior is that almost every piece here is new and everything has definitely been designed to look more premium than before.

We have a lot of different textures here, from the textures inside these lamp modules to you can see the light from the ceiling. Right there with that little hatch pattern, the front seats have high adjustable shoulder belts, four-way adjustable headrests, you can see those nicely integrated side curtains back there for the rear passengers and then we've got a panoramic sunroof, there's two panels , a small one. right there over the rear passengers and then this big one right here over the front passenger area, as we see in much of the European competition, the base models have faux leather seats, but the model we have has the upgraded upholstery, like you can see.

They have a really interesting pattern right there on the seat back and the bottom seat cushion. The center sections of these seats are perforated because these seats are heated and ventilated. Now again, the passenger seat does not have the same range of motion as the driver's seat. I think it's a bit unfortunate. I wish we had identical seats here moving over the front door panels. We find a majority of materials that are soft to the touch. Really the only hard plastics you'll find are on the inside of that storage container over there. at the bottom of the door, the colors can sometimes be a little tricky on camera, but this is a two tone interior, this is a navy center section, not charcoal, and then we have sort of a bottom section and upper chestnut brown. door, as you would expect on a luxury vehicle, there is a lot of open pore wood trim, we find new door handles right in the front of the door and also new door and window switches here, so they are different to those we have.

I've seen on Genesis models before, this model has the Lexicon sound system, so you can see a little Lexicon logo on the lower speaker grille and then the dashboard design is very similar to what we see on the upcoming GV80 SUV . We have this huge widescreen LCD screen on the right. Here at the top, this is over 14 inches, this provides integration with a smartphone. You can see Apple CarPlay working right there and then on the driver's side, we'll see in a moment we have another large LCD screen, which is a 12-inch LCD screen. and offers 3D technology in addition to that large infotainment screen, the other surprising thing about this interior has to be this large open-pore wood trim, very well integrated with the air vents, since this is a new package of software for genesis, let's take a If we look at it a little closer, the system supports swipe gestures so you can swipe to the home screen or to those other menu options right there.

We have driving information, which is pretty typical - you get this kind of start, stop driving and idle graph right there, so you can see where all your fuel is going, obviously, a ton of options here on the settings screen . We also have access to Genesis connected services. Now this is a pre-production vehicle, so it's not active right now if we access the climate control. screen, you'll notice some things we haven't seen before. We have vents here above this infotainment screen so you can choose whether you want the air to be a little more diffuse or not, and there are a ton of different ones. modes here, including recirculation plus mode, pond cleaner fluid activated, etc., this system will also detect fine particles in the air and automatically activate the recirculation function.

Now, one thing you'll notice we're still missing is a four-zone climate control system, it's a three-zone system. system so that in the rear area and then in the two front areas you will also notice that I can see what the buttons in the driver's seat would do just by touching them. I'm not actually activating those buttons, I'm just touching them, they're touch. responsive and this is what the ergo motion seat screen looks like, you can choose the full body stretch option right there, if we turn it on and then go into the settings right here, you'll notice that we can also choose how long we want this to work for a long time, unlike some of the ones out there that don't offer much time, we can actually choose up to 20 minutes.

You can also choose whether you want the driver's seat to adjust when you enter sport mode and there is a posture assist feature for longer car journeys, the mapping software hasn't changed much so the interface is very similar. to what we have seen before, but obviously now uses the entire screen below the wooden band we find the controls for the climate control system, this is another touch. LCD screen here and this offers haptic feedback, so when I press the buttons, the screen will actually make a buzzing sound. We have knobs here for the temperature and this is definitely a different look than we've seen before.

Under the climate controls, we have a sliding cover. that hides the qi wireless charger the single USB input for the infotainment system is a 3 USB port and then a USB charging port only there is enough room there for those larger smartphones with the cable connected here we have two large cup holders and They hide just under that wooden covering. This is again the controller for that infotainment system. You can see the touch section right there in the middle, that rotating dial with lots of knurled accents. There's volume right here. Tuning knob right there, there are home and then back menu buttons for that infotainment system behind it, we have a brand new rotary style shifter that has what looks like a glass or acrylic top so that it really you can see all those details. there and it's also illuminated you can see the little glow we turn it to drive right there to reverse and then park it's the button in the middle there's also a button for the auto brake hold system which is definitely an interesting look .

I'm not sure if I like the twist shifter, I think I'd prefer some of the T shifters we've seen here before. We have a driving mode selector that allows us to choose between eco and personalized sport comfort. Custom mode can be adjusted via the infotainment screen we also have a button for the 360 ​​degree camera system. This is one of the sharpest 360-degree camera systems out there. If I press and hold the park button we get park assist mode so you can get out of the vehicle and use the remote control and parallel park it for you, in addition to the typical 360 degree view we also have an interesting augmented reality view which is really cool, so I can pan over there and I can see, oh, my camera rig is right next to the car and you can see a little bit more detail of exactly what you're going to run into or run over while you surround the vehicle.

You can see a lot of stuff in the background that I probably should have hidden a little better because it looks ugly on the driver's side, we have a full LCD instrument cluster that measures a little over 12 inches and as you can see the theme of the screen changes depending on the drive mode you select with that drive mode button that I showed you earlier. They look like some kind of demon eyes up here, on top of the camera, those are infrared sensors, they're actually watching your face, making sure you're looking at the road and of course on the screen, these aren't visible to the human eye. but they are visible to the camera, the system also uses them to activate the 3D mode in this instrument cluster, which is really cool, but unfortunately I haven't been able to film it with the camera, there is no good way to show you what that is.

It looks like it, but in a nutshell what it does is it makes the needle really stick out and it makes the screen here, the numbers appear to be further back from the rest of the screen, it's really noticeable if we go into eco mode where there are a bunch of different layers. on the screen and then this bottom section here is actually a little bit closer to the controller in appearance. You can now disable the 3D functionality. If you don't like it, you can have it as a 2D Screen, but the 3D screen is pretty good, what's also interesting is that if you look away from the LCD instrument cluster, it goes back to 2D mode until you look at it again now, this screen It's not as configurable as some of the other luxury screens we see out there, especially the new Mercedes screens, and we don't have a full moving map screen like we find on Audi products, but we do have side view cameras well integrated that we have seen for a while since genesis and Of course, we have turn-by-turn navigation screens on this LCD screen, as well as the status of the vehicle's active safety systems.

Let me know what you think about the design of this flyer in the comments section below. It's definitely different. I'm not. Not sure exactly how I feel about this shape right here in the middle, but I like the fact that they've thought outside the box, we've got sporty grips on the upper shift paddles at the back and then lots of buttons on the front . You will find the buttons for the infotainment system here, forward backward, volume, up, down, mode button, there is a favorites button and some phone buttons, and then on this side we find the controls for the system adaptive cruise control, steering assist button right there for highway. driving and then the top button changes what is displayed right there on that multifunction LCD screen, the barrage of buttons continues on the driver's side where we find a new button for the side mirrors, unfortunately the g80 they were able to send us was very very early.

Pre-production vehicle, so it was not legal to drive on the road, so I have only been able to drive the G80 in my driveway. Fortunately, it's long as far as driveways go, however it means I really know very little. about how the g80 accelerates, drives how quiet it is etc. that means if you want to know my opinion on the g80 on the road be sure to hit the buttonsubscription down there, click the notification bell icon and enable all notifications because I hope you do. We'll have the new G80 in production in about a month so we can put it through our usual battery of tests and, of course, our full comparison and review section.

If you want to get your hands on a 2021 G80, it will be available in dealer showrooms in just a few months, we're told, fall 2020 and you won't have to bring as much cash as you would if you wanted a BMW or a Mercedes because it's noticeably less expensive, starting at forty-seven thousand seven hundred dollars for With the 300 horsepower two-and-a-half-liter turbo four-cylinder engine, we have a lot of standard equipment on that model, however, not only is it less expensive than the Germans , but we also have more content. It's also worth noting that we get more power standard on that model than entries like the Volvo S90, we also get that huge infotainment system standard on all models, but we do get a measure of cost reduction for the base trim and that is we get an eight-inch LCD instrument cluster, not the largest.

However, the 3D instrument cluster we saw on this model features adaptive cruise control, blind spot collision avoidance system, all that sort of stuff is standard on all models, if you want all-wheel drive you'll have to pay fifty grand. eight hundred fifty. dollars with the same two and a half liter turbo if you want the engine that's under this hood, which is the new three and a half liter twin turbo v6 that will cost you 59,100, that's a very similar price to the mid level. Turbocharged engines that we find, for example, in the BMW 5 Series, the 540i or, of course, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, but again we get more standard content in the G80 than we find in those alternatives and, if you want a G80 fully charged, that will do it.

It will cost you around 68,000, of course, before taxes. Title and license that would require you to get the 3.5 liter turbo all-wheel drive, the prestige package, and then a 400 upgrade to the metallic paint. Obviously the value continues to be a strong sales proposition for the genesis brand includes the g80 this will cost at least six grand less than a bmw 5 series and I'm not talking about comparable equipment I'm just talking base model to base model Depending on how you want to equip your BMW. to the genesis here, if you wanted similar features you could pay up to 12,000 more for the bmw than this genesis here, of course there is no corollary for the bmw m550i or bmw m5 in the genesis range at the moment although it was interested to see this engine bay has a lot of room, so in theory maybe there could be more powerful engines in the Genesis future, we just don't know exactly what it will be, at this point the value proposition seems to fade a bit .

When you try to compare this twin-turbo model to the BMW 540i, it will only cost you about 300 less, but remember that we have thousands of dollars in standard equipment on the Genesis that we still don't find on that BMW M540i, so regardless of how you compare it to The BMW or the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, this will be thousands of dollars less expensive. and will also have a longer standard warranty. The g90 is priced so aggressively that, surprisingly, it will still be less expensive than other value products like a volvo s90, an audi a6, or an infiniti q70, which is positively dated compared to it. guy here in fact the q70 is so old it actually dates back to about the first generation of the genesis g80 at this point at least in summary the g80 is pretty easy for me back in the day i would have said a g80 gives you 95 of the luxury experience for 80 of the price, but the calculation is clearly different in this generation of the g80, generation after generation, the genesis has gotten much closer to the European competition and I really think they have absolutely matched that in terms of quality interior and I think in terms of exterior design I also know that some people are not big fans of this huge grill, but I will say that it looks a little smaller in person.

I think the combination of styling elements makes the grill look a little smaller. larger in the photos in person, I actually agree with this grille and think it certainly looks much better than what we find in the modern Lexus lineup and in many ways the G80 reminds me of what Lexus could have done If they had spent the time and money on the Lexus GS, the GS rode off into the sunset with a series of very well-made engines, but none of them had the same kind of power or the same kind of direct feel that we found under this hood. for a similar price.

Of course, Lexus was still trying to sell us a naturally aspirated three and a half liter V6 in the gs and that's not as quick as the twin turbos we find under this hood or under the hood of the European competition and Genesis has proven that They can basically match Lexus' quality in their latest vehicles if we take a look at the latest reliability and dependability metrics. Genesis is doing incredibly well. They may not be exactly where Lexus is right now, but they are certainly very, very close, there are definitely aspects. of the mercedes-benz e class and the bmw 5 series which i like, but overall i prefer this interior to what we find in the audi a6 at the moment and i think it compares incredibly well to the mercedes, bmw and volvo. s90, all of which have very well done interiors but of course genesis offers it to you for a much lower sticker price than all the ones including the volvo s90 or the infiniti q70, but I think the biggest competitor to this one is not the lexus gs, which again it is.

Being discontinued, I think it's actually going to be the Genesis GV80, which is right behind me because it's only about 1200 more than the G80 and I think its interior is a little better if you haven't seen my first video about it. gv80 right behind me so go ahead and watch that video because it should be on the channel around the same time as the video you're watching today and if you want to know exactly how the g80 works make sure you stick around. Stay tuned because I hope to get one of these around August or September 2020. so make sure you hit the subscribe button there, find us on facebook.com, alexandoto's instagram, all those other social places and me.

I'll see you all later and I'll be back again for the full album review as soon as I can.