The Genesis GV90 Is An Insane Flagship SUV With A Heated Floor Like A Five-Star Hotel Room

The flagship SUV is a phenomenon that’s here to stay. Range Rover was arguably first, but now you can walk into just about every luxury car showroom in America and buy a machine as tall as it is posh. Cadillac Escalades, Porsche Cayennes, Bentley Bentaygas, Rolls-Royce Cullinans, the list goes on and on. Conspicuously absent: Genesis, until now. This is the production-spec Genesis GV90, and the simplest way to sum it up is that it’s absolutely bonkers.

See, Genesis could’ve benchmarked the feature sets of the Lucid Gravity, Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ, and called it a day. The large luxury electric SUV segment has enough space that such a move would’ve been perfectly competitive. Instead, Genesis seems to have shot much, much higher. High enough to suddenly make a Maybach seem a bit tame, provided you spec the GV90 all the way up.

Let’s start with what makes it go. While just about everyone initially assumed that the GV90 would ride on the same e-GMP platform as the GV60, it’s instead the first Genesis model on a new platform called “Electric Mobility Prime” or eMP in initialism-speak. This Genesis-exclusive architecture supports advanced chassis technologies and big battery packs, and Genesis has used that to its advantage. Under the floor of the GV90, you’ll find a 123.5 kWh battery pack with 800 nominal volts controlled by a wireless battery management system. It feeds power to two electric drive units, each with its own electronically controlled limited-slip differential for a combined power output of 657 horsepower and 590 lb.-ft. of torque. Naturally, 350 kW DC fast charging is supported, although expected range is only quoted at 310 miles.

Beyond that, air suspension comes standard with multi-chamber springs at all four corners, permitting independent adjustment of ride height and effective spring rate, and monotube dual-valve adaptive dampers keeping those air springs in check. With a 127.75-inch wheelbase, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the rear wheels can steer by up to five degrees either with or opposite to the fronts in order to shrink the GV90’s turning circle at low speeds or enhance high-speed stability. The chassis itself is made of a mixture of aluminum and high-strength steel, with an integrated roll cage providing the torsional rigidity necessary for one hell of an optional party trick.

See, you can spec the GV90 with four normal doors, but if you pop for the Neolun model, the entry and egress situation changes. Not only are the rear doors on this model rear-hinged like on a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, but they’re powered, and the B-pillar’s been eliminated entirely. This is some straight-up concept-car stuff that you don’t normally see on an SUV this size, but it fits so well with the overall visual treatment of Genesis’ flagship SUV.

Instead of leaning heavily on sharp creases, Genesis has gone all-in on compound curves and soft radii, minutely pushing and pulling the sheetmetal. Most of the surfacing here is refreshingly subtle, with gently contoured flanks adding form without excess aggression. That’s saved for the front valence, where metallic trim punctuates a large latticework of grille. The real trick here is the lack of a visible radar sensor for the advanced driving assistance systems, and I suspect Genesis has found a particularly novel way of hiding it. How wild are those headlights when you stop to think about it? Or should I say headlight, because it’s a seamless jewelled one-piece affair across the entire front of the GV90. Two elements align to form a shield in the negative space, alluding to the marque’s signature grille without faking one. It’s likely that the forward-facing radar sensor’s hidden in that panel, aiding a sleek and refined front end.

If there’s one really strange angle on the GV90, it’s the rear-three-quarter, due to how Genesis has cheated the roofline, then treated the rear glass. With the availability of a third row requiring sufficient headroom in the wayback, Genesis has pulled the roof itself proud of the D-pillars on both the horizontal and vertical planes. That proud area then flows down onto a hatch with a relatively small, inset rear window. No black trim to cheat width here. It’s a bit odd, but you can likely forgive it due to what you see when you open the driver’s door.

Boom, leather in interesting hues everywhere, complemented by metal and crystal and a wild array of nuanced details. There’s an undeniable richness to the cabin of the GV60, a materials-first approach that hides some wild technology. For instance, that enormous infotainment screen’s actually in the deployed entertainment-while-parked position. Press a toggle on the face of the dashboard, and it retracts to a far more sensible height. There’s another little screen in the middle of the combination volume, fan speed, and temperature knob, a 25-inch head-up display instead of in a traditional gauge cluster, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.

See that column-mounted shifter pointing straight up and down like the Washington Monument? The GV90’s eliminated a traditional start-stop button, so when the doors are closed and the infotainment screen’s retracted and all of that, the shifter automatically rotates to a two o’clock position on the steering column as a physical sign this SUV’s ready to drive. At the same time, a crystal sphere in the console rotates to reveal a controller, and the dashboard tweeters for the 25-speaker, Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 Bang & Olufsen sound system rise. Who can say no to a little bit of theater?

You can get the Genesis GV90 with a choice of seven, six, or four seats. Go with the last option, and things get really wild. The front seats electronically rotate around 180 degrees to face the individual ottoman-equipped rear seats for the sake of conversation, and a separate partition seals off the luggage compartment to keep things quieter than the thick acoustic side glass can do alone. A refrigerator? Check. Tray tables in the console? Check. An electronically-frostable panoramic roof? Check. All the right ultra-luxury stuff, but Genesis then adds something we’ve never seen before: Fully loaded GV90s feature wood floors with built-in radiant heating. Exactly like in a fancy chalet. Part of the reason this is possible is due to the floor structure being completely flat, but it’s still a jaw-dropping feature to see in a car.

There’s so much more to unpack on the Genesis GV90. Massaging seats with 15 individual air bladders, a heated windscreen with a thin uniform metallic coating that eliminates a fine defroster grid completely, heated armrests and door panels, a roof airbag, wheels measuring up to 24 inches in diameter, the list goes on. However, one overarching theme stands tall here: Genesis wants it all. It would’ve been far too easy to repurpose the e-GMP platform wholesale from the Hyundai Ioniq 9 like what Toyota does with the Century SUV or Cadillac with the Escalade, but no. It’s very much its own thing.

Flash back twelve years, and Genesis didn’t exist as we know it today. It was just a Hyundai nameplate covering both a scrappy, affordable sports coupe and a reasonably posh midsize sedan. Now it’s competing with some of the world’s biggest and longest-running luxury car brands on pure merit. The GV90 means business, and so long as it’s priced right and a relatively normal range isn’t a turn-off, it should be a success.

Top graphic image: Genesis