There was a time when buying a luxury car was a simple affair. You picked Germany, you picked a badge, and you picked exactly how loudly you wanted the world to know you’d done well. That era is over, and the Genesis GV60 is Exhibit A.
Genesis, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is Hyundai’s luxury arm. The GV60 is its smallest electric car, and it feels less like transport and more like a deliberate lifestyle choice. My friends and my wife all thought I’d turned up in a Porsche. Genesis 1, rest of the world 0.
Inside the cabin
The looks are only half the story. Things really come alive once you climb in. I genuinely love this interior, and we have to start with the crystal sphere, which is not a sentence I expected to write about a Hyundai-derived crossover.
When you start the car, a crystal-like ball on the centre console flips over to reveal the gear selector. It serves no functional purpose whatsoever beyond making you grin like an idiot every time you set off, and frankly, that is reason enough.
Everything else delivers, too. The fake brushed steel, the leather stitched seats, the layout. It is properly thought through and looks expensive in a way that makes you want to drive it.
The screen sweeps across the dash with big, clear icons and is easy to navigate. There is one slight catch. You have the gear sphere on the centre console, and immediately in front of it sits a control knob for the screen if you don’t fancy prodding it. The two are very similar to the touch. I may, on one occasion, have tried to change something on the screen and instead put the car into neutral while moving. That is operator error, but worth knowing about if your drivers will be jumping in and out of pool cars.
On the road
Does it drive as well as it looks like it should? Pretty much, yes. It is set up a touch firmer than some will want, which is the price of its sporting pedigree. The steering is solid and precise, it tucks into corners neatly, and on the motorway it is calm and controlled. It rides bumps a little firmly for my taste, but for a long motorway slog it is genuinely refined.
The toy count is enormous. Highway driving assistance, lane following, and blind spot cameras that flick up in the dashboard fed by cameras under the wing mirrors.
The seats move in 18 different directions, they heat you, cool you, massage you, and remember you. They are basically the best friends you never had.
The upshot for fleet drivers doing serious mileage is simple. You arrive less tired than when you started.
Range, charging and performance
On to the electrical bits. The GV60 uses an 84kWh battery with a claimed range of up to 348 miles in extended-range form. The Sport version manages 318 miles, and the high-performance version 311 miles. In real-world winter driving with the heating cranked up I have been getting a little less than the headline figure, but it is still respectable.
The 800-volt architecture means a 10 to 80% top-up in 18 minutes on a fast enough charger. That is a coffee stop rather than a sit-down lunch, which matters when you are running a fleet that cannot afford long stationary chunks of the working day.
Performance is brisk. You get 229bhp and a 0 to 60mph time of around four seconds. There is quick, and then there is GV60 quick.
What it costs your business
Now, the money. The car I have been driving is the GV60 Pure with the comfort pack and the innovation pack, and it lands at around £62,000. The range opens at just over £54,000 and tops out at £67,000 for the high-performance variant. That is firmly in German luxury territory.
For SME fleets the figures stack up rather nicely. Zero CO2 means it qualifies for 3% BIK, which puts user-choosers in a very different tax bracket from anything petrol or diesel at this price point.
Genesis backs the car with a 5-year care plan, which gives operators useful peace of mind on maintenance through the typical replacement cycle. Downtime is minimised by that 18-minute fast charge, and Euro NCAP has handed it five stars.
The verdict
The GV60 is quick, lovely to drive, and a delight inside and out. The catch is that the price tag puts it head to head with the established German brands, and the Genesis badge does not yet carry the same nod of approval from the neighbours. For some user-choosers that will matter. For others, it is exactly the appeal.
The path less trodden, the cool enigma, the company car that prompts a question rather than an assumption.
For me, I’ll take the path less trodden every time.
