It’s when I drive something else and then get back into the Genesis Electrified GV70 that I realise just how refined it is. This happens after almost every car I drive, which constantly reinforces what a peaceful car this is to travel in.
Month 3: V2L visualised
The shortest day of the year gives plenty of darkness to go stargazing. And that’s what I did recently with my long-term Genesis Electrified GV70 – with a twist.
I drove to Exmoor National Park, to meet up with some people from the UK Genesis team, who’d set up camp in the park. It was literally the middle of nowhere, decidedly off-grid. And that’s why we were there – to demonstrate another smart feature of the electric SUV: its vehicle-to-load (V2L) functionality.
Basically, it means you can plug things into the car. Pop an adaptor into the charge point in the grille and, hey presto, you have a three-pin plug socket ready for whatever you’d like to power. Kettles, laptops, lights, you name it – it supports a 3.68kW charge, which is actually higher than the power supply in your home.
Thanks to the use of multi-socket extension leads, everything in our base camp was powered by the cars: lights, coffee machine, popcorn machine. Even the heated seat cushions we were sitting on (it was freezing) could be powered by the cars. This felt immensely liberating: there’s no need to go off grid, because you have a mobile National Grid.
Whilst searching for the adaptor, I even found the three-pin plug socket in the boot. Which makes me wonder why I’m paying so much for motorway service station coffee, when I could just take the Nespresso machine with me.
On the Genesis Electrified GV70, V2L functionality comes as part of the Outdoor pack. At £900, it’s not cheap – it would be nice if it were standard – but the fact you can power an entire camp from a couple of cars potentially makes it invaluable.
Even if you’re not planning on going camping, think about how useful it would be the next time there’s a power cut – and recently, as we’ve seen in the news, some people have been off grid for days.
Oh, and if you’re suspicious of just how much power it would draw from the battery, don’t worry. The evening stargazing took just 1 per cent of battery charge, and we were there for a good couple of hours. It was a fabulous demonstration of super-useful electric car tech, and I’m already now planning how I can put this functionality to good use in the future.
Dark skies
The drive back was illuminating too. Because it was in the middle of nowhere, there was a 40-minute drive back to the farmhouse where we were staying for the night. On winding roads, in total darkness, with added fog to spice it up even further.
The Genesis Electrified GV70 has brilliant headlights, which made life so much easier. The two strips of daytime running lights look super-intense, but now I’m driving mainly in darkness, I’m appreciating the sheer power of the main headlights themselves.
On some new cars, the headlights are glitzy, but oddly not that beacon-like in practice. The Genesis, however, basically has lighthouses for headlights, with exceptional intensity and clarity.
They’re also matrix LED headlights, so you can default to main beam and it ‘shields’ the glare to oncoming cars. Oh, sure, you’re probably thinking: and I’ve been there, on a launch of a mainstream car with matrix headlights, with the lighting engineer next to me squirming as oncoming car after oncoming car flashes their lights at me.
But in the Genesis, I’ve not been flashed once. It’s not a scientific test, but it suggests that the anti-glare shielding for oncoming motorists works. Watching it in action is mesmerising too, as the light beam sweeps across the road in front of you to illuminate as much as possible. The last time I was as excited by headlights was the first time I sampled Xenons, back in the early 2000s.
Muddy puddles
The next day, after a schlep back up the M5, I arrived back home in daylight and… realised the Genesis Electrified GV70 was filthy. If you live in the countryside, it seems you’re destined never to have a clean car.
I, however, like clean cars – so, come Saturday morning, I was on the driveway with a hosepipe and bucket of warm soapy water. A couple of hours later, and I can’t remember a bigger transformation.
From looking grubby and weather-worn, the GV70 was once again sparkling. And I mean sparkling: the Uyuni White pearl paint has the dazzling clarity of those headlights when it’s clean.
It looked so nice, I was reluctant to drive it. But that sort of defeats the point of having a car, so I’ve now accepted white cars will need regular cleaning to be kept at their best. Which, with a car as beautifully finished as a Genesis, is not so much of a hardship to car geeks like me.
One more thing. Remember how I mentioned keeping the white brake calipers clean? Well, they’re dirty – caked not in brake dust, though, but mud. It’ll be a festive job, working out how to get behind the wheels to get them sparking once again.
Month 2: Fast charging
The Genesis Electrified GV70 is so fast, it’s costing me money. Not by picking up speeding fines, despite the temptations of its 490hp output and 0-62mph acceleration. No, it’s the rapid-charge speed of up to 233kW that is proving expensive – simply because it takes on charge so quickly at expensive public rapid chargers, I dare not leave it for too long because the battery will be full and my bank account empty.
It isn’t even the fastest rapid-charge speed you can get; but it’s still perfectly fast enough. Once the battery gets above 25% charge, you can watch the miles ticking up (and, at 80p per kWh, also see the bill rocketing up as well). I rarely need more than 15 minutes’ en route charging; usually, 10 minutes is enough.
This sort of goes against the grain of assumptions around EVs. Indeed, instead of plugging it in and kicking my heels for 45 minutes, I’ve taken to plugging in, catching up on the latest TikTok cat videos, then unplugging and either parking elsewhere, or simply getting on my way again.
Range review
So how is the range going? During the summer, I was generally seeing 250 miles on a full charge. Now the temperatures have dropped, so has the range. The new rule of thumb is around 225 miles, which edges down further during frosty spells.
This isn’t as good as some of the newest posh SUV EVs, which have a range well in excess of 300 miles. The Genesis’ range is dependable though, meaning it doesn’t suddenly drop while on the move. Contrast this with the Vauxhall Corsa Electric I drove recently, which seemed to lose two miles of range for every mile covered.
Thanks to the rapid charging, I’m able to work around it. I just wish the onboard sat nav was a bit easier to use; because it’s fiddly, I default to Waze, which means I’m missing out on the clever battery preconditioning that would help me get maximum recharge speeds right away.
The onboard navigation also doesn’t easily show battery percentage remaining at the end of a trip. This is something Tesla displays front and centre, so you always know how much charge you’ll have at the end of a journey – or, if you need to stop, exactly how long you need to add. With a few more long trips coming up, getting my head around the intricacies of the onboard navigation is high on the list, in order to unlock the benefits. Even if Waze is so, so much easier to use…
App-tastic
Like nearly every new EV, the Genesis has a comprehensive smartphone app. This lets you check on the charge, send sat nav instructions to the car (see above – I really don’t have an excuse, do I…) and, notably, check if it’s locked. Given the amount of early morning airport runs I’ve done recently, this has proven invaluable. That last-minute panic just before the captain tells you to put mobile phones into flightsafe mode, eradicated.
It’s useful in other ways too. Such as, simply checking the car is still where you left it. And also for locating it again in large identikit car parks – I’m looking at you, NEC Birmingham. Now it’s winter, I’ve even been using the preconditioning function: at the press of a button five minutes before I leave home, I can set the climate control whirring, warming up the cabin and defrosting the windows.
However, useful as it is, I can’t help but think it could do even more. The Tesla app somehow makes you feel more of a community; it has added easy-access functionality that keeps you going back. This is a bit more clinical, a little too utilitarian. If Genesis really wants to make its EV drivers special, building out what the app can do – after taking a good look at Tesla – would be a good place to start, I reckon.
Month 1: Introduction
Genesis will be both delighted and frustrated by the reaction of my neighbour’s builder. “Wow, that’s a lovely car, mate,” he said. “What is it?”
It’s not the first time I’ve had to reveal that this is a Genesis Electrified GV70, that Genesis is a premium rival to Audi and BMW, and no, it’s not the new Bentley. The latter, again, being a nice problem to have, but I’m sure Genesis would prefer to be recognised in its own right.
So I’m spending six months in an electrified GV70 to help spread the word. It comes after a shake-up at Genesis UK, which was introduced here in 2021. Originally a fully standalone brand, Genesis has now been partly integrated into Hyundai UK, to enjoy greater benefits of scale – and, yes, help boost awareness.
In short, you should be hearing a lot more about Genesis. It’s the perfect time to discover more about what these cars are like to live with.
A fully electric SUV
The Genesis Electrified GV70 is the EV version of the regular GV70, an SUV rival to the Audi Q5, BMW X3, Volvo XC60 and others. ‘Electrified’ might suggest it’s a hybrid or PHEV, but no, it’s fully electric. Maybe calling it ‘GV70 Electric’ might have been neater; it would certainly be less of a mouthful. Now you know it’s an EV, I might just stick to ‘GV70’.
There’s only one model on offer, a GV70 Sport, which retails for £65,105. That buys you a 77.4kWh battery with a range of 283 miles, along with two electric motors driving all four wheels that together produce a whopping 490hp. Needless to say, performance is abundant, with 0-62mph taking 4.2 seconds.
To get an idea of where it sits compared to rivals, the entry-level BMW iX3 undercuts it by a couple of grand, with a similar battery, similar range, and much less equipment. The cat amongst the pigeons is the new Audi Q6 E-tron, which starts from around £63,500 – and that’s for a huge 100kWh battery with a 392-mile range. It is, admittedly, 184hp less powerful, so notably slower – but 0-62mph in 6.7 seconds still isn’t bad. We’ll come back to that in the future when we first drive the Q6 E-tron in the UK.
Measuring 4.7 metres long and 1.9 metres wide, the GV70 is a big car. To these eyes, it’s nicely proportioned as well, and the pearl metallic Uyuni White paint of this example really suits it. The plunging side feature line still seems a bit unusual on an SUV, but I’m getting used to it, and there are some luxury-grade details elsewhere, from the chrome window strips to the brilliantly precise shut lines – a real marker of quality.
Loaded with equipment
My car has a variety of extras, including 20-inch alloy wheels and white brake calipers. On an ICE car, this would be a brave choice, as they’d soon get blackened with brake dust. The brake regeneration of an EV should help keep them clean, though… We shall see.
Inside is a real point of difference compared to the German competition – because it’s so well equipped, it’s almost easier to list the features that aren’t fitted as standard, rather than those that are. This task is made easier for me, as it has an additional £15,000 of options to lift the luxury still further. I’ll dig deeper into them in due course; let’s just say the £2,350 Nappa leather seat pack is already, once again, drawing Bentley comparisons.
First impressions are that it’s regal to sit in, with the familiar premium SUV seating position, but it’s also a machine that you sit in, rather than on, which I like (I always felt a bit perched in the previous Audi Q5, for example). The infotainment screen will take familiarisation, but there are actual buttons and physical climate controls to help – praise be. And I’m slowly getting out the habit of twirling the infotainment dial when I want to shift from reverse to drive.
Noise-cancelled calm
Being an EV, range is the first thing I’ve focused on. An official range of less than 300 miles is a possible hindrance, when newer-generation models such as the Audi manage well over 350 miles. And in reality, a full charge is tending to give me around 250 miles. But on the other hand, the GV70 can use ultra-rapid chargers, so any stops should be brief. I drive a lot of miles, but I also have a wallbox at home, so I can start each day fully charged. Let’s see how it works out.
Besides, the first few weeks with the GV70 have been dominated not by range, but by how incredibly refined it is. I can’t remember the last time I drove a quieter car, certainly one that wasn’t wearing a Rolls-Royce badge on its bonnet. Jump out of a regular car and the Genesis’ smooth silence is striking every time.
This in part could be thanks to the £1,010 Lexicon audio upgrade’s active noise cancelling function, but it’s also obvious the GV70 is a very hushed machine. It feels like a genuine luxury-grade car and, as someone who values refinement, it’s been a delicious thing to drive.
As the diary fills up, there will be more miles to cover, and plenty more to report on. Frankly, I’m looking forward to it, and not just to escape the racket from my neighbour’s noisy builders.
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