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Genesis bets its flagship EV on a missing B-pillar, because the spec sheet is shared
The GV90 rides the same 800V platform as the Ioniq 9 and EV9, so Genesis is selling doors, swivelling seats and heated floors instead. Crash testing will decide whether that works.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Genesis, Hyundai's luxury brand, revealed the GV90, its first full-size, three-row electric SUV for the US market.
- The GV90 is a full-size electric SUV with 490 kilowatts, 800 Newton metres and a 123.5 kWh battery, shown in San Francisco on Wednesday.
- The GV90 uses the same 800 V E-GMP platform as other Korean electric three-row SUVs, the Hyundai Ioniq 9 and Kia EV9.
- A three-row, seven-seat GV90 will be part of the range, but for the launch Genesis is focusing on the four-seat GV90 and the high-end GV90 Neolum.
- When the front and rear coach-style doors open outward, the B-pillar disappears, creating an extra-large opening into the vehicle.
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Why it matters
Genesis showed the GV90 in San Francisco on Wednesday: a full-size electric SUV with 490 kW, 800 Nm and a 123.5 kWh battery [2], presented as the brand's first full-size three-row EV for the United States [1]. What it led with was not the powertrain but the packaging, specifically a coach door that makes the B-pillar disappear and front seats that rotate 180 degrees to face the second row [5][13].
The emphasis makes commercial sense. The GV90 uses the same 800V E-GMP platform as the Hyundai Ioniq 9 and Kia EV9 [3], which means the expensive part of the car is shared with two considerably cheaper Korean three-rows. The quoted hardware is competent and unremarkable: two drive units with electronically controlled limited-slip differentials, 657 hp, 590 lb-ft, 350 kW DC fast charging and an estimated 310 miles of range [19]. Genesis's own testing quotes about 500 km and a 10 to 80 percent charge in 22 minutes on a 350 kW charger, plus air suspension and rear-wheel steering [20]. Note that the 500 km and the 310 miles are the same figure in different units [21], as are 490 kW and 657 hp, and 800 Nm and 590 lb-ft [22]. There is one range number here, and 310 miles out of a 123.5 kWh pack is not the headline anyone would choose.
So the differentiation moves inside. Genesis calls the door the Neolun Arch Gate and describes it as the world's first independently opening and closing hidden B-pillar coach door [6]. The B-pillar is not decorative: it reinforces the roof against collapse in a rollover and absorbs energy in a side impact [7]. Genesis says it replaced it with high-strength dual steel beams tying the doors to the body [8], and reinforced the cabin with a frame 1.5 times thicker than conventional, integrated high-strength steel tubes and structural foam, forming a hidden roll cage it claims delivers crash performance equivalent to a car with a B-pillar [9]. As The Verge notes, that claim is for regulators and independent testers to settle [10]. Genesis has previously told Ars Technica it learned enough from the concept to engineer the doors to volume-production safety requirements [11], and every GV90 gets what the company calls the world's first roof airbag, one of 12 [12].
The rest is furniture, competently specified. The swivel seats, borrowed from autonomous vehicle concepts and Zoox's purpose-built robotaxis [14], turn only when parked [15]. There is a 23.6-inch OLED display that rises 90 mm and expands to 24.6 inches [16], a 25-inch head-up display replacing the cluster [17], heated floors, armrests, side panels and door trims, 15-bladder massage seats and a heated windshield [23], and a Memory Reversing Assist that retraces a path out of a tight alley [18].
Two caveats on the pitch. At launch Genesis is focusing on the four-seat GV90 and the high-end Neolum trim; the seven-seat three-row is coming to the range but is not the launch car [4]. And the market is soft: US EV sales have slowed since the $7,500 federal credit ended, and Genesis declined to say whether the GV90 will also be sold as a hybrid or a petrol car [30].
Watch the crash results first, because everything else is contingent on them. Then watch the mix: the GV90 is built at a new Ulsan plant, arrives in American showrooms early next year and becomes the brand's seventh US model [24]. Europe does not appear in the announcement at all [25], which tracks with 82,331 US sales last year against 2,476 in Europe, where volumes fell 6.7 percent [26]. One analyst told Forbes the brand "may as well pack up and go now" [27]. Genesis is meanwhile shifting Europe from its concierge model to showrooms shared with Hyundai and Kia and adding hybrids and range extenders [28]; a pillarless EQS SUV rival [29] is not the car that fixes 2,476.
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