I have driven a Genesis G90 on an autocross course. If you are buying a luxury sedan with the specific goal of driving it on an autocross course, you are too much of an iconoclast (or a nut) to listen to any of my advice. It wasn’t bad, for what it’s worth. But this isn’t the car you drive on the race track. It’s maybe the car you drive to the racetrack. In an ideal world, it’s the car you’re driven to the race track in the back of by someone else while the car’s massaging seats transform your back into some sort of expensive gelatin. A gelée.
This is the third installment in our car-buying advice series for the capricious. The goal is to not give you the obvious choice and, instead, help you make the choice you never fully considered. Previously I suggested the Dodge Charger V8 is a budget barnstormer and the Kia Niro Hybrid as a catch-all crossover for people who want something small and affordable.
Today, it’s the Genesis G90. A big ol’ luxury car without the big ol’ luxury price.
Reason #1: Everyone Thinks It’s A Bentley
If you absolutely must have a Bentley then you must absolutely get a Bentley. They’re nice. They’re a little less showy than a Roller and are sublime to drive. Also, a Flying Spur starts at over $200,000. Maybe you don’t have $200,000. Or, maybe you do, and you only have that amount of money because you don’t go spending it on $200,000 cars.
For all of that wisdom and restraint, you deserve a little something nice. You can’t take it with you, right? The Genesis G90 could be the right choice.
First, everyone thinks the Genesis G90 is a Bentley because it looks like a Bentley. The winged badge evokes luxury. The sparkling grille spreads out for a mile in aristocratic splendor. The interior is supple and restrained. Even the wheels look like precious ornaments rolling along the road.
This isn’t a flattering imitation. This is a coup.
It looks like a Bentley for a reason. The Chief Creative Officer for Genesis had a sweet gig before this, as the Design Director for a little concern based in Crewe, England. If you come for the king you best not miss, and it’s the same for the king’s car. Thankfully, Luc and his team didn’t miss.
Reason #2: It Drives Well Enough
When I was invited out to preview Hagerty’s Bull Market list at Lime Rock I requested a smaller, faster car that I might use to sneak up to the FCP Euro Proving Grounds for a few laps. That car suddenly became unavailable at the last minute and they sent me this instead.
I had no intention of actually driving it on the tight circuit as that’s not what this car was built for in the first place. Nah, just kidding, of course I was going to drive it on the autocross. They could have sent me a box truck and I’d have taken it on the autocross.
The ride up to the track was as smooth as freshly churned butter. My daughter, earlier, described it like “gliding on a cloud.” That’s a cliche, but she’s eight so I’ll forgive her. Also, she’s not wrong. The G90’s air suspension was designed to swallow every bump, soften every turn, and make you forget you’re going anywhere.
But I was going somewhere. The track!
Like most of the cars in this class, the G90 is heavy. It’s a land yacht, not a land sloop. At over 5,000 pounds you’d assume the thing would rock and sway like it’s listening to some sweet, sweet Michael McDonald. Not quite. When pressed hard the G90’s front/rear multilink suspension keeps the Genesis upright and bopping along like listening to Don Henley at the very least.
Bentley likes to say the power in its vehicles is adequate. It’s a kind of understated boast. The power in the G90 is literally adequate. The E-Supercharged version I had uses an electric supercharger on top of a 3.5-liter V6 as part of its 48-volt hybrid setup. It’s the mildest of mild hybrids and it makes 409 horsepower and 405 pound-feet of torque. I wouldn’t mind having more power even if I rarely noticed (a future G90 Magma might solve some of this).
The G90’s real trick, though, is its rear-wheel steering (RWS) system, which turns the rear wheels in the opposite direction in order to shorten the steering radius. It works quite well. At slow speeds, the G90 feels about four feet shorter than it is.
None of this makes the G90 a true replacement for something like a Mercedes-AMG S63, which is dynamically superior albeit slightly tackier. I don’t like the way new Mercedes cars look inside so it’s not an issue for me.
And that’s the probably the biggest advantage the G90 has. If you’re not a brand snob. If you don’t care about the badge. If you don’t mind explaining to people it’s a Korean car, then you got a lot of inches (more than 207 of them) for relatively not that much money.
Let’s put this in perspective. A completely loaded, E-Supercharged G90 with every option comes out to a base MSRP of $99,500 and an as-delivered price of $101,400.
By comparison, the basest of base Mercedes S-Class models (the S500 4matic) costs $118,900 with exactly zero options. I tried to build as comparable an S-Class as I could and it cost $153,100. An AMG S63 E may be a better car, but it’s also $186,200 without any extras so you’ll have to ask yourself: Is it $84,800 better?
Don’t believe me? The folks over at Car And Driver drive just about everything, and they rank the G90 ahead of the Mercedes-AMG S63, the Audi S8, The Audi A8, The BMW 7-Series, The Maserati Quattroporte, and even the stalwart Lexus LS. The only car that outranks it is the base S-Class which, in spite of the price, is still the platonic ideal of a big luxury sedan.
The car publication actually gave the G90 a 9/10 rating, saying in its verdict: “The G90 aims for value while matching its rivals’ opulent cabins and smooth driving experiences.” Motor Trend wrote this about the car’s ride: “What a Ride: A Love Letter to Our Genesis G90’s Air Suspension.”
Really, if you read any review on the G90, you’ll see that it’s a superstar.
Reason #3: It Has All The Stuff
My first stop with the G90 was picking my daughter and her friend up from dance practice. She’s never been in a limo, but kids immediately understand what it’s like to be chauffeured around everywhere.
She started pushing buttons. First, it was moving the front passenger seat to chauffer mode, which reclines the rear seat and extends a footrest. Second, it was changing the radio 900 times. Then they found the massage mode. My daughter was particularly fond of turning up the seat heater and setting it to upper-back massage.
The front seats do this as well. It’s niiiiiiiice.
If you get a G90 you get all the stuff you should get for a car in this class, including but not limited to:
- Logo puddle lamps
- Big 12.3″ digital instrument cluster
- Bang & Olufson 3D audio system
- “Mood Curator” that can release a special fragrance
- Digital phone key
- Nappa leather
- A full tank of gas (that’s on the window sticker)
If you buy a nice car you should get the things. It has the things. Not all of the things are the best versions of the thing (the infotainment system is clunky), but they’re there. It also features the dumb, power-opening doors a lot of these cars have. I do not like these doors, but clearly rich people enjoy this.
There’s also the largest and most prominent dash light dim control button you’ll ever need. Is this good? I have no idea.
That’s what you get with the $101,400 Genesis G90. It’s got the look. It’s got the stuff. And it’s got a price you can’t beat if you absolutely must have a big luxury sedan.
My parents just bought a 2024 leftover G80, so I can see the 90 as a next step. With the 6 year bumper to bumper warranty, should get a few years out of it.
I kind of miss when the Hyundai dealer I work for also sold Genesis cars; G90s were such a treat to photograph, and it’s neat seeing how they’ve continued to evolve since then.
Or you could get an actual Bentley for $30k.
The racing green sure is nice, but I made the mistake of looking at the interior right at lunchtime.
Is that an actual electric supercharger or are they calling a hybrid assist motor a “supercharger”? Because if it’s the latter I have a new least favorite thing, right up there with four door coupe crossovers.
The styling language Genesis has going right now is in the same category as a lot of Hyundai styling over the years for me, specifically that while I appreciate the fact they took a big swing, it just doesn’t quite work. Not a complete whiff, but a weak foul ball. I’m not sure whether it would prevent me from buying one (not that I’m in the market), but it’s definitely not a selling point.
I’ll be calling my butt the “Mood Curator” from now on.
“Hey Steve, how do you feel now?”
–
“Angry”
Say, the guy in the topshot looks just like inimitable Autopian publisher Matt Hardigree!
Are those gauges configurable? They look like cheesy Winamp skins from the 90’s. I am not sure why Genesis would go to the trouble to mimic real gauges and sign off on this.
$100K for one of these is jaw-dropping, and not in a good way.
I honestly thought they were $70K.
I’d be buying a Lexus I think.
Eh… In two years you can grab a used one for 30k, maybe less.
OTOH if you are and if you do, you probably won’t want to buy, lease, or be seen in something associated with Hyundai. Even if one is not particularly snobby, one might be put off by something that rather clumsily apes a more established and refined marque.
Branding aside, I am not a fan of the wheels or the grille.
I love the car, and I’m an anti-brand snob, but that grille is ugly.
I don’t think it’s ugly, but at least it’s somewhat restrained. Lexus has been doing the ugly grille thing so long that we’ve kinda let it go. If you make me choose between this grille and The Predator, I know which I’m picking.
Why not both? I wish I could do the GIF.
Anyone in the market for a new (or even CPO) luxury car that doesn’t give Genesis a hard look is a moron. These aren’t diet luxury cars where you sacrifice some things to save a few grand. They look the business and they’ve got the chops to back it all up. There’s not a single loser in their portfolio.
It will be a long time before I ever consider another Kia/Hyundai product after the disastrous reliability that has plagued seemingly all of their cars for the last few years. In the 90s it was well documented that they were throw away cars, then they got their crap together for a few years, but man it’s gotten incredibly bad lately and I steer clear until they get things figured out again. Their cars are beautiful, truly some of the best designs on the market, the interiors are impressive too, but reliability is priority 1 for me, so none of the rest even matters.
This is the kind of car you lease, like a Bimmer, Merc, or Audi; or, at worst, you buy and trade in a few years later. None of these cars tend to be terribly reliable past about three-to-five years, so I fail to see why reliability would be a real issue.
Yeah but a lot of the Korean cars aren’t even making it to the 3-5 year range without issues. And I don’t want to deal with a warranty engine replacement as often as your average Mercedes needs an oil change.
So, the smell-o-matic thing, you have to refill the scents, right?
Is there one called “Teen Spirit”?
But I can see you
Your brown paint shining in the sun
You got your seats reclined and your
headlights on, baby
I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong
After the Bentleys of summer have gone
I saw an Autopian sticker on a Genesis G90, a little voice inside my head said “don’t look back, you can never look back”
I’m more into the G80 Electric – Which is luxury, but sexier.
And apparently it’s a screaming deal now too.
I’m curious about the G80, my wife wants to get the GV80 but she still talks about how she misses her E96 and I’ve heard that these drive a lot like the BMW’s of the early to mid 2000’s drive.
Did you mean E90?
The Genesis logo seems to cause a lot of uninformed coworkers to call my wife’s G70 a nice Aston Martin. You just see so few of anything Genesis around here it is kind of weird.
These seem to be really underestimated by the market. Here’s a 2021 with the V8 and 89k miles for just under 37k. That’s genuinely S-class/7-Series luxury for even less than what they go for at similar age and mileage. Sure Genesis/Hyundai/Kia isn’t on par with Toyota, and their dealers may be subpar, but I cannot imagine the running costs of a used G90 would be anywhere near that of it’s German rivals at a lower entry point.
Tau V8 was pretty reliable by this time.
It also sounds sublime with an exhaust on it.
That’s what I thought, although I’m not aware of any reputation good or bad of the 3.3/3.5T V6s that are a lot more common, and time will tell if the 48V system in the new ones holds up. I’ve heard there are always little things with Hyundai/Genesis cars that can be a PITA, but I can’t imagine it’s worse than an overly complicated germane competitor.
I guess I need to sit in one. My knee-jerk reaction says that 37k on a used H/K product only makes sense if your address is in Crazytown.
FWIW I haven’t ever been in one either, I’m just looking at it from a depreciation standpoint from new till now, and that compared to competitors. The cheapest 2021 S-Class I could find was still 57K, so effectively 20k more on purchase price alone, and I’m not sure these are 20k lower on new MSRP. You can find 2021 740i all day for 33k, but it’s all subjective. Either way, these seem to be awfully nice for the money on the used market, and sure do seem to depreciate exactly like you’d expect a new large luxury sedan to depreciate.