Genesis G70 Quick Review
Quick Review Series
Welcome to our new “Quick Review” series where we aim to provide a quick (mostly objective) overview of cars we’ve driven and consumer-focused insights that help regular people decide if a specific car should be considered when looking to buy a new automobile.
These aren’t designed to replace thorough research or reading more in-depth reviews in automotive publications (like Motortrend or Edmunds) but rather provide an easy to digest jumping off point when looking for a new car.
In these tests, we are largely looking to determine an overall “feeling” for a car, point out some relevant pros and cons, and discuss how the car performs in its intended purpose and stacks up against competitors.
We think it is important to have firsthand experience driving many different cars when working with clients to determine their needs and recommend the perfect car for them. Our bosses say this was just a clever way for us to get them to pay for fancy Turo rental cars instead of a Save-Mo Rent-a-Car Chevy Spark, but we’ll let you be the judge.
TL:DR
We drove a 2025 Genesis G70 for several days to see if we could figure out the hype.
We Loved:
Super comfortable
Lots of standard tech
Design
We Hated:
Engine and handling don’t excite
Road noise
Rear seat and trunk space are cramped
Verdict: Great lower-level luxury car, but is a few intangibles away from making the Germans sweat.
Intro
When Genesis stormed onto the scene as a standalone brand back in 2015 a lot of people had the same question… “WTF is that?” Now, a decade (and several automotive awards) later, a lot of people still have that same question. (Short answer is that Genesis is a luxury sister brand to Hyundai – think of Lexus and Toyota or Acura and Honda.)
We don’t mean to call out Genesis’ (Genesis’s (?)) (Genesesss’(?)) marketing team. We know it is no small task to create and market a brand-new car brand and are happy that we are seeing more and more of these cars on the road (meaning that fewer people question what the brand is). However, we still notice a bit of a dichotomy in the reception the brand has had.
The consensus in the automotive journalism world is that Genesis makes some pretty darn good cars (Genesis has become a mainstay on “10-Best” lists, and the G70 won Motortrend’s coveted Car of the Year honors in 2019 while the larger G90 won the same in 2023), but while “car people” seem very stoked on Genesis, we still hear many (less nerdy) people wonder aloud when they see a Genesis pull up at the local Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse valet stand.
We decided it was time to do our part in getting the word out about Genesis and see how they stacked up to competitors in the sport/luxury segment. Does Genesis have that intangible “it” factor that makes its German rivals so sought after?
The Car
For our first foray into Genesis, we started near the bottom – with the entry-level G70 sedan. Our car was a 2025 model with the 2.5 liter turbocharged inline-4 engine (300 horsepower and 311 lb.-ft. of torque) with the Sport Prestige package. Our test car was an AWD model with an MSRP just shy of $50,000. The RWD base model 2.5T G70 has a starting MSRP of $42,500 while the more powerful 3.3-liter V6 starts at $50,950 and can rise to over $57,000 in Sport Prestige AWD trim.
The Sport Prestige package on our test car costs roughly $4,000 and adds a few nice features such as leather seating surfaces, park distance warning, wireless phone charging, ventilated front seats, better brakes, and premium audio. We found it pretty annoying that park distance warning is not standard, and the only way to get it is with this $4,000 option package but admit we would probably spring for the package anyway because of the other added features (we’re suckers for real leather and seat ventilation).
The Test
We’re profiling a bit here but find that the typical buyer of a small luxury/sport sedan is somewhat affluent (often some form of white-collar professional) and either single or in the early stages of a family (perhaps a young child or two). It may be the only car in the household (especially if the owner is single) or the slightly less practical vehicle in a two-car household (the other might be an SUV or minivan).
This sedan will most often be used for the daily commute into the city but will also occasionally be used to grab the kids from preschool, pick up a few friends for a fancy dinner, or a quick weekend getaway. Comfort is probably high on the priority list, along with tech, practicality (at least somewhat), and performance/fun to drive factor.
We unfortunately didn’t have any spare kids lying around but figured we could get close to experiencing most of these other uses by spending a few days in LA – attending meetings and dinners – and then heading up to Mammoth Mountain for a weekend ski trip.
The Design
While looks are subjective, we were huge fans of the exterior of the car. The G70 looks sleek and sporty, with Goldilocks “just right” proportions while being sufficiently different from a comparable BMW, Audi, or Lexus. We thought the double “whisker” headlights and crisscross grill were unique without being gaudy (don’t get us started on BMW or Lexus front grills).
The interior design is pleasant but not mind blowing. When the refreshed G70 debuted in 2022, the interior was a revelation; however, the minor 2025 update (essentially changing a few physical knobs to haptic buttons) leaves the interior feeling a bit stale. The controls are laid out well and the finish looks good, but after spending some time in the car, you realize that there are probably too many cheap plastic bits and the screen is just too small compared to rivals (even for us old school somewhat anti-tech folks). If a big, fancy touchscreen infotainment system is important to you, you should probably look elsewhere.
We admit, however, that the diamond patterned leather available only on the 3.3L Sport Prestige models might change this impression slightly.
The Drive
The G70 is easy to get comfortable with. Controls are intuitive, visibility is good, and the proportions just seem to make sense. It took us all of thirty seconds to acclimate and feel like we’d owned a G70 for years.
The seats are comfortable, even on the 5-hour drive to Mammoth, and the ride is compliant on the highway or LA’s pockmarked surface streets. The car isn’t boring on windy roads, but we felt that the ride/handling erred more on the side of luxury than sport.
We struggle to put it eloquently into words, but parts of the G70 just felt disjointed. On the luxury side, the car handled bumps and potholes comfortably without jarring occupants; however, the tires slapped loudly over expansion joints and road imperfections. This added to a generally elevated level of noise at highway speed took away some of the luxury impression of the car.
On the sporty side of the equation, the car was able to handle both tighter turns and long sweepers (even at 90 mph on the deserted Highway 395) but always felt just a little unsettled, like it wasn’t really enjoying it and wished you’d turn your aggressiveness from a 7 down to a 5. The car also never really felt lively, even in Sport and Sport+ mode, and the engine note was disappointing. Our largest issue with the drive was the G70’s weird handling characteristics. The car has more body roll than a BMW 3-Series. We don’t mind this, given how comfortable the ride is. However, the problem is when the body roll comes. It seems to take ages for the car to roll after turning into a corner and comes on suddenly and with decent force, requiring the driver to correct the steering angle. Almost like the car asks “are you sure you want to take this corner at this speed” and then has to quickly catch up once it realizes that the answer is “yes.” This made it hard to really trust the car, especially when taking corners at higher speeds and took away some of the fun factor.
Practicality
While not the biggest priority in a car of this type, buyers typically want some level of practicality in a small sedan (otherwise, it would be convertible sports cars for all). This was unfortunately an area where our little G70 struggled.
The trunk is small, especially when compared with the typical rivals (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4/S4, and Mercedes C-Class). The middle seat passthrough allowed us to fit our skis without issue, but adding two ski boot bags, two backpacks, and one large suitcase made it a game of Tetris when loading the car. Taking a group of four skiing in a small sedan is always a challenge but would be almost impossible in a G70. A ski trip for two was hard enough.
Finally, while young children should be fine in the back, a G70 owner will likely feel a bit self-conscious when driving adults around in the backseat. Legroom is cramped, even when sitting behind a driver who is well under 6 feet tall, and the sloping roofline (which looks amazing from the outside) makes headroom an issue for taller passengers.
Gas mileage was another weak point for the G70. It’s EPA estimated 23 miles per gallon (in mixed driving) ranks noticeably behind its German rivals (Mercedes C300 4matic at 27 mpg and Audi A4 and BMW 330i xDrive at 29 mpg each). We averaged around 21 mpg (but were probably driving more aggressively than most owners). The G70 performs a notch better than the Lexus IS 350 AWD at 22 combined mpg (but we note that this is due in part to Lexus’ reluctance to turbocharge its engines – the naturally aspirated (no supercharger or turbocharger) IS 350 needs a 3.5 liter V6 engine to make similar power to our 2.5 liter G70). The G70 does have a slightly larger engine than its German foes (2.5 liters vs. 2.0 liters) and makes roughly 50 more horsepower than each; however, it isn’t any faster. Most automotive magazines have the Genesis losing in 0-60 mph acceleration tests and 30-50 mph passing tests, and our “seat-of-the-pants” impression agrees with these numbers.
The Genesis does shine in two areas: standard tech/safety features and value for money. Even in base trim, the G70 comes with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, heated front seats, keyless entry and start, and several USB ports for charging electronic devices. Useful safety features such as adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, rearview camera, blind spot assist, and rear cross-traffic assist are also standard. The Germans love charging extra for seemingly basic necessities and always seem to bundle one feature you really want with three useless ones as part of some expensive option package. Whether picking up a base model or fully loaded G70, you will save a few thousand dollars compared with a German sedan and likely have more features to show for it. The only downside here is that the main infotainment screen is noticeably smaller than those fitted to the G70’s rivals.
While not the full “self-driving” you might see in a Tesla, the adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist function pretty well to keep the car in its lane and a safe distance behind traffic. These features are useful when traveling on long, little-traveled highways – where the monotony can cause a driver to lose focus – and a godsend in rush hour traffic, allowing the driver to relax and essentially let the car take the wheel for most of the commute home. The worst thing about the system is that it seems to have tunnel vision – it will not register a car changing into your lane seemingly until the car has fully merged – leading to an annoying number of automated slammings of the brakes. We’ll largely give it a pass since we’ve noticed the same thing in many other cars (and can’t even begin to fathom the engineering that makes such a system possible), but wish we could get in a room with the programmers and cheer them on like the last mile of the Boston Marathon – “you’re so close, just do that last little bit of engineering wizardry to let the car notice cars four feet to its left and right!”
It is also hard to argue with Genesis’ 5-year/60,000 mile bumper-to-bumper and 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty (compared with the 4-year/50,000-mile warranty offered by competitors). We also imagine that a Genesis will be slightly cheaper to maintain than its German counterparts (but likely on-par with Lexus). It remains to be seen, however, if Genesis can separate itself from Hyundai’s reputation of falling apart after 100,000 miles.
Verdict
I find myself reluctant to talk too negatively about Genesis or the G70 (and our team that drove the car agrees). The company has accomplished some tremendous feats in its relatively short history, and the car was a genuinely nice place to be in traffic or on a deserted highway. It is also hard to argue with the value proposition of the G70. It does an admirable job going toe-to-toe with the German sedans that invented the segment and were benchmarking it for decades before Genesis even existed.
However, this does bring me back to some wise words from my dad after I played a seemingly lackluster high school basketball game even though I had hustled my butt off: “intangibles matter.” Even though my points and paper stats were dismal, he reminded me of the countless times I had pressured an opposing player on defense, forcing them to take a bad shot, or boxed out and allowed a teammate to grab a rebound.
While stats matter, sometimes those intangible feelings you can’t quite put your finger on make all the difference. On paper, the G70 makes a compelling argument, offering more bang for less buck, but on the road, I couldn’t ignore the nagging thought in the back of my mind that I would be having a better time in a German car. Wouldn’t road noise be just a bit less intrusive in a Mercedes? Wouldn’t a BMW or Audi feel just a little more composed on a backroad and at high speed?
In reality, the G70 is probably more of a direct competitor to a Lexus IS, and we would take one over the Lexus. It feels pretty close to the same luxury of the IS with a bit more sportiness and pizzazz.
But there is a reason that even though Lexus did its best to copy the German formula and then add reliability, consumers still flock to the German brands. The best cars are more than just the sum of their parts – you can’t just cobble together features and stats and expect total cohesion. This level of transcendence comes after years of experience and fine tuning… and, yes, intangibles.