What It’s Like To Drive The 2026 Genesis GV70 (POV)
How’s it going, guys? Today, I’m going to show you what it’s like to drive the fully refreshed 2026 Genesis GV70 from a firstperson point of view. There’s a host of upgrades for 2026, and as the bestselling model in Genesis’s lineup, it’s exciting to see what they’ve done with it. So, there’s actually three powertrain options now for the GV70. The entrylevel trim has a 2 and 1/2 L turbocharged 4-cylinder making 300 horsepower. Then we have this model. It’s got a 3 and 1/2 L twinturbocharged V6 making 375 horsepower and 391 pound- feet of torque. Capable of sprinting this to 60 in just 4.6 seconds. And if you want something even quicker, they’ve got the electrified, fully electric version of the GV70 that sprints from 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds. At first glance, the changes on the outside from the 2025 to the refresh 2026 aren’t readily apparent, but the subtle differences actually make all the difference in the world. We have this G crest grill that looks really cool. Check out the pattern there. Fully three-dimensional. Now, we also have the dual line daytime running lights, but with new micro lens array headlights, which look really cool and provide better performance for lighting. Then down below, we’ve got a more aggressive front fascia and skid plate setup. Now, around the side, not much has changed, but we do have new options for the standard 19-in wheels, and these are optional 21-in wheels that look quite nice. The 21s get two 55 section tires all the way around. And you’ll notice it’s got these really sharp body lines that kind of mimic the dual line headlights and then continue around to the tail lights. We also have a refreshed key that feels really high-end. The cool part is now you don’t even need to use your key. You can use an app to unlock the car remotely and you can even gift electronic keys to friends and family so that that way they can drive the car as well. Now around back we’ve got those dual line tail lights that continue the theme. We also have a brand new exhaust tip setup. The previous sport trim versions had these massive round tail pipes. These are more kind of trapezoidal. We also have a new spoiler on the back and an updated rear diffuser. Something I’ve never seen before on any other car. Actually, this is where the trunk release button is attached to the windshield wiper. It took me a second to find it. We’ve got plenty of cargo room right here. I believe 59 cubic feet of storage and of course 60/40 folding seats for even more storage. The real magic, however, are the updates to the interior. I’ve briefly showed you a preview of how stunning this interior is up front, but let’s start this section off in the rear seat environment. We’ve got this gorgeous Napa leather with quilted stitching. There’s also a variety of colors to choose from that are really nice. You don’t have to go this bold and red. Got this gorgeous carbon fiber trim there. Down here, a speaker for the Bang and Olivesson sound system. Ambient lighting that runs in the rear seat environment of the car as well. Let’s go ahead and hop inside. You’ve got three zone climate control. One for the driver, one for the passenger, and then down here, one for the rear seat occupants. USBC there, conventional plug, which is pretty nice. Tons of leg room. That’s how I was sitting before on a 2-hour drive. Tons of leg room. And then look, we’ve got a gorgeous sunroof and Alcantara absolutely everywhere in the top level trim. All right, we’re in the driver’s seat of the GV70. Now look at that gorgeous one-piece 27in OLED display. Often auto manufacturers split it up into dual 12.3 in screens, but as you can see, there isn’t a single dividing line. So you’ve got this seamless integrated screen, which is pretty nice. I also love the fact that they have both hard controls and touch controls for the climate, which is nice. If you want to quickly turn the temperature up or down, you’ve actually got a scroller. We’ve got paddles mounted behind the steering wheel for the 8-speed automatic transmission. Nice leather wrapped with a flat bottom. One cool component of this car is the active noise cancellation. So, you’ll see there’s all of these little microphones inside of the cabin that are constantly monitoring to see if there’s too much road noise or too much ambient wind noise. And then it’ll emit an exact opposite frequency sound. So, it cancels out the wavelength and basically makes it quieter in here. And to further that, they’ve made a resonance chamber inside of the hollowedout wheels to help dissipate sound outwards instead of in the cabin. We’ve got a Bang & Olivesson sound system with 16 speakers. We also have some controls on the side of the seat. If I touch them, the associated control pops up on the display here. But let’s go ahead and click this button. This is the massage. You have a massaging driver’s seat. I was using whole body earlier and it’s actually pretty intense. It works well. I love the fact you obviously can’t see it during the daytime right now, but we have ambient lighting all throughout the interior that actually looks really, really nice and creates a cool environment. Hopefully you guys can’t hear the massage seats going right now. Carbon fiber throughout the center console. We also have different drive modes to choose from, including a terrain mode. So, if we go ahead and flip through the different modes, the gauges change a little bit. Now we’re in sport plus. We put it into eco mode. Now we’ve got kind of a green layout. But then if you push this, you can put it into terrain mode to do some off-roading. Right here we’ve got a repositioned wireless charger in here. Got some charging ports as well. And then to put the vehicle into drive, you’ve got this glass turn dial. Go ahead and shift it to D for drive. Or let’s go ahead and shift it to reverse to show you the backup camera. Now, if we click this button here, we’ve got a three-dimensional view in real time of the GV70 in the parking lot that I’m at right now, which is pretty nice. All right, guys. Let’s take this thing out for a drive behind the wheel of the GV70. Now, to put it into drive, scroll this over to the right, and off we go. Let’s go ahead and put it into sport plus mode and see what this thing’s got. I’ve driven this for the last couple of hours and honestly it’s not quite as fast as I was expecting. The 0 to 60 figure is better than I would have imagined for a car with 375 horsepower. Now, I understand that the target audience is not maybe my typical subscriber base that loves crazy amounts of power, but I do wish that it had say 400 or maybe 450 horsepower, which probably wouldn’t be that difficult to do. It’s already forced induction. Just crank up the boost a little bit and then boom. It is probably actually relatively tunable. Driving wise, it’s really comfortable and easy to drive. Let’s go ahead and put it into comfort mode. So, there are a couple different settings for the sound cancellation. There’s original sound, minimal noise reduction and maximum noise reduction. And I’m not going to lie, even with maximum noise reduction on, there’s more tire noise and wind noise than I was expecting, but it is relatively quiet in the cabin. Now, for audio files, the 16 speaker Bang & Olivesson sound system is absolutely fantastic. It sounds really, really good. I like the shape of the new steering wheel design. a lot better than the previous kind of pillshaped design. And the upgraded infotainment is leagues ahead of where it used to be. Apparently, they made some adjustments to these controls here because people were complaining that the drive selector and the controller for the multimedia looked too similar. And so now they’ve differentiated it right there. You also have a fingerprint for customizing your driver settings as well. Really good visibility over the hood. Let’s look over my shoulder. Good visibility over your shoulders as well. Easy vehicle to place on the road and it rides comfortably. Let’s go through the driving modes again. Let’s put it into eco. Got that kind of nice green layout. Comfort, sport, sport plus. Now, you know what? I’m actually curious if I can tell a big difference between the noise cancellation on and off because now that I’ve clicked maximize, it does seem to sound a little bit quieter. They did a phenomenal job with the instrument cluster graphics. I mean, how cool is that? We’ve got kind of a lightning storm happening right there while you’re in eco mode, which is actually interesting. That feels to me more of a sport mode setting. I just noticed this. So, we’re in sport mode right now. If we put it into sport plus mode, the needles are literally on fire, which is pretty cool. If you put it into sport plus, it’s also telling me that traction control is off, which is actually rather interesting. All right, let’s do a little launch, shall we? Wow, now that I’ve turned the sound generator up to maximum, this thing has a pretty good growl to it. You can make it effectively silent if you want, but that is Wow, it sounds good. Kind of a completely different experience. I do wish this thing was a little faster, though. Overall, I think they’ve done a fantastic job with the redesign. Obviously, this isn’t a completely new vehicle, so they’re not going to make an insane amount of changes. But honestly, for a midcycle refresh, they have done quite a bit, particularly with the interior. It still feels like a Genesis, but with a modern, updated twist. And one thing that I am impressed with Genesis as a brand, they started back in 2015, so it’s literally been only 10 years. In my opinion, they don’t seem to copy design language from anyone else. The exterior looks pretty unique. The interior design is very unique. I haven’t seen this kind of layout for a dash before. Obviously, the massive screen is kind of in every car these days. But with so many car designs and iterations out there, it is hard to start a new car company and not basically accidentally copy um a whole bunch of people’s design. So, got to give them props for it being unique. This car is priced a little bit above $70,000. It is expensive, but it’s really comfortable. I really like the way it looks inside and out, and it would be a very nice family or just a daily driver in general. So, the GV70 also has electronically controlled suspension that uses both the camera, the frontal camera, and the navigation to scan the road ahead and kind of pre-adjust the vehicle for bumps ahead to make the ride quality even smoother. something that I first saw on a Rolls-Royce. So, it’s cool that they’ve got that technology in a Genesis. Makes for a very smooth ride. We’ve got McFersonson multi-link front suspension and multi-link rear suspension as well. The other cool part with the electronically controlled suspension is in the case somebody cuts you off, in order to make the vehicle feel more stable, the computers recognize and the cameras that somebody just cut you off. So, it adjusts the suspension so that under emergency braking, it doesn’t nose dive forward. That way, it gives you a little bit more confidence in that emergency situation. I will say there is a pretty sizable delay when you hit the paddles between when it downshifts. Watch. Downshift. But it is a conventional automatic transmission. Obviously, it doesn’t have a dual clutch. Now, also that being said, is somebody who’s driving this car going to be ripping it through the canyons? Unlikely. Although, I do really like the fact that Genesis is focused on having some level of performance in their luxury cars. And this car even has a launch control, which for a luxury SUV is hilarious and epic. Uh, at the presentation this morning, somebody asked, “Why would you have launch control uh in an SUV?” And the answer is because it rocks. [Music]
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What It’s Like To Drive The 2026 Genesis GV70 (POV)
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