I have long been a fan of Hyundai — well, not the early Hyundai Excel years, of course — and I loved when it took a turn for the luxurious. The Genesis gave is a nice shot in the arm, then the Equus, despite being a short-lived test run, was nothing short of full-on luxury.
The Genesis nameplate brand has split off into its own brand with a few models, and now it is a fully fleshed-out luxury lineup with plenty of sedans, SUVs, and even EVs to offer buyers. I’ve been biding my time to finally get some seat time, and that happened recently with the 2022 Genesis GV70 3.5T AWD Sport Prestige.
Here’s my impression on the 2022 Genesis GV70 3.5T AWD Sport Prestige after spending a week in its posh driver’s seat.
2022 Genesis GV70: Exterior
The 2022 Genesis GV70’s exterior is well put together and eye-grabbing without taking things too far. Sure, it kinda steals from Mercedes, BMW, and Volvo a bit here and there, but it does so tastefull and with its own personality.
The Swoopy body still looks like a legit SUV without looking overly rugged, playing to many buyers. The triangular-style rear quarter glass plays nicely into the GEnesis shield-style grille, tying the front end to the rear. One of my favorite features, though, is the rear split shoulder lines. As the main line continues its path, a secondary line shoots off and climbs up and over the top of the rear wheel haunch.
Around the back, you get a sharp-looking set of circular tailpipes and a set of LED taillights that look like Genesis took some liberties with BMW and Mercedes’ taillight designs. But what is the automotive world without a little copycatting?
2022 Genesis GV70: Interior
The 2022 Genesis GV70 makes no misstatements inside: This is a legit luxury SUV. This is the real deal, from the super-comfortable Nappa leather seats to the horizontal steering wheel center to the monstrous 14.5-inch touchscreen infotainment system and beyond.
Once I sunk into the plush captain’s chair up front, I forgot this had any relation to Hyundai. Heck, it’s even in a class above the best Genesis models and Equus vehicles from yesteryear.
The only complaint I had about the interior was the touchscreen HVAC system. While it wasn’t clunky, it takes some getting used to. I concentrated too much on that system for the whole week to get the settings I wanted. If I had the 2022 Genesis GV70 for more than a week, I would have adjusted to it, though.
Being the Sport Prestige model, Hyund…. Err, Genesis, rolled out the red carpet for me. It features a standard 14.3-inch touchscreen, Nappa leather upholstery, a 3D 8-inch digital gauge cluster, a head-up display, carbon-fiber trim, heated second-row seats (not that they help in Florida in November), an ear-splitting audio system, and much more. This bad boy was decked out.
As for interior roominess, the GV70 is decent with 37.2 inches of rear seat legroom and 28.9 cubic feet of cargo room behind the rear seats. It lacked in max cargo space at just 56.9 cubic feet. The lacking max capacity is mostly due to the bulky, albeit super-comfortable, seats taking up a lot of space.
2022 Genesis GV70: Powertrain
The base engine in the 2022 Genesis GV70 is a 2.5-liter turbo four-cylinder that bangs out 300 horsepower and 311 pound-feet of torque. This flows through a standard 8-speed automatic transmission to all four wheels.
The model I tested boasted a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 with 375 horsepower and 391 pound-feet of torque. This also flowed through an 8-speed automatic transmission to all four wheels. Probably the most impressive part of this rig was its 4.6-second 0-60 mph time, which is on sports-car level
Don’t expect to save on fuel in this rig, as the V6 model gets just 19 mpg city, 24 highway, and 21 combined. And if you love the feel of that twin-blown V6 pulling away, you’ll get much worse mileage than that. The four-cylinder model is a little better, slashing 22/28/24.
2022 Genesis GV70: Safety and Driver Assist Features
Every single 2022 Genesis GV70 comes standard with a slew of safety and driver assist features. This long list includes automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, lane-following assist, blind-spot collision avoidance, rear cross-traffic avoidance, highway driving assistant, adaptive cruise control with stop and go, speed limit assist, driver attention warning, safe exit assist, and more.
My model also included a surround-view monitor, remote smart parking, reverse parking collision avoidance, and more.
All the features worked very well, but I will find the remote smart parking utterly useless. It rarely works as you want it to, and even if it did, is it really necessary to line the car up with the spot then get out and have it park itself? I picture a Karen in the parking lot losing her shit as you block the lane, get out of your posh SUV, and do the little song and dance needed to get this feature to actually work. By that point, you could have parked the car your damn self and been in the store.
And again, that is if you’re even in the impossible “right conditions” to make this cool-in-theory-not-in-execution feature to activate.
2022 Genesis GV70: Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a luxury SUV that won’t break the bank and still rival anything BMW, Audi, Mercedes, or Volvo crank out, the Genesis GV70 is it. It’s got a sharp look, loads of comfort, plenty of power, and an MSRP that starts at $43,150 ($55,950 as tested). You can’t beat it once you forget this is a Hyundai deep down.
Then again, an Audi is just a Volkswagen, a Lexus is just a Toyota, and an Infiniti is a Nissan, and they all get passes. The Genesis GV70 should get the same respect — if not more.
