Genesis EV coming as brand eyes 10 percent luxury share

Hyundai’s luxury brand Genesis has promised its first electric vehicle is coming as early as 2021 – and it will come to Australia.

The news comes as the fledgling luxury brand commits to a 10 percent market share target, which would give it similar Australian cut-through to Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus.

Genesis Australia marketing manager Stewart Parnaby confirmed a Genesis EV was not far away.

He said like all vehicles being prepared for markets such as Europe and America, the electric models are planned to come to Australia. With the first EV due globally in 2021 that means the first electric Genesis could be here within 18 months.

“There is an electric vehicle coming,” said Parnaby. “Our intention is to have every vehicle Genesis brings out in a right-hand drive market [be sold in Australia].”

The big question is which Genesis models will get the EV treatment.

The soon-to-arrive G80 large sedan is all but guaranteed, with spy shots showing an EV version testing in Germany. That would make it a rival to something like a Tesla Model S.

Genesis is also working on various electric SUVs. One likely contender would be the just-revealed GV70; parent company Hyundai has even registered the names eGV70, eGV80 and eGV90.

Another likely contender is the GV60, set to be the smallest of the SUVs offered by Genesis in coming years.

Having a rival for the upcoming Tesla Model Y seems like an obvious play as the interest in SUVs continues to grow.

Genesis made its electric car intentions clear at the 2019 New York motor show with the Mint concept. The small city runabout is eventually expected to inspire an electric production car, athough it appears some way off.

While luxury rivals – including German giants BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz – are capitalising on huge European demand for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, Genesis appear to be sticking to the promise of formal global chief Yong-woo Lee, who said the company would “skip” hybrids and head straight to battery electric vehicles.

While Parnaby admits EVs will take time to gain traction, he believes “the opportunity for electric is huge”.

“All the barriers to getting into EVs are disappearing.”

The news comes as Genesis commits to an ambitious target of eventually commanding 10 percent of the luxury car market.

That’s the word from Hyundai and Genesis Australia CEO Jun Heo.

“We want to be ambitious,” said Heo. “We are aiming to touch …. 10 percent [luxury] market share.”

While the luxury segment can be sliced and diced different ways – some segments Genesis doesn’t yet play in could be excluded, for example – for the last few years they have accounted for a bit over 100,000 sales.

So Genesis is targeting a similar share to arch rival Lexus, which first began selling cars in Australia in 1990.

While Heo didn’t put a timeframe on the 10 percent goal, he admitted it was not in the short or medium term.

“It will take some time. This is a long journey.”