The Genesis GV80 luxury SUV’s base price has soared by over $20,000 in Australia, but the Korean luxury brand says it doesn’t expect sales to slide as a result.
After axing the entry-level turbocharged 2.5-litre petrol four-cylinder for 2024, Genesis Australia has removed the 3.0-litre turbo-diesel inline six. In this case, its hand was forced as the engine has been axed globally.
Additionally, Genesis Australia has made the Luxury Pack standard, while introducing an even pricier GV80 Coupe to sit atop the range.
Despite this, it says sales won’t decline for its BMW X5 and Mercedes-Benz GLE rival, even though the 2.5T accounted for around a quarter of GV80 sales previously and the diesel accounted for 30 per cent.
“Coupe will represent around 30 per cent of the mix of total sales, so we certainly believe that it’s going to add to sales, it’ll somewhat compensate for what’s been lost,” said Genesis Australia CEO Justin Douglass.
“Now that we’ve got Coupe and SUV, we certainly see it as adding some sales volume.”
The company notes the Coupe will attract new customers to the brand, and in a subsequent statement said it expects it to “more than make up for any sales deficit by the loss of the powertrains”.
Genesis sold 403 GV80s in Australia in 2023, around a third of the Volvo XC90’s volume and around a quarter of the Porsche Cayenne’s.
The range now opens at $130,000 before on-road costs, up $24,300 on the base price of the 2024 range, and up $9300 on the 2024 GV80 3.5T with the Luxury Pack added.
Genesis says 95 per cent of GV80 buyers were opting for the Luxury Pack, which made it logical to make this standard.
“If you’re looking at a GV80, it’s standard with everything that you’d expect for a luxury vehicle,” said product planning assistant manager Michael Rowland when asked why the company had dropped its most affordable GV80 models.
“We’re not so much trying to wage a price war, instead we want our product to stand on its own two feet firmly.”
By whittling down the number of variants, Genesis is leaving the only decisions to be paint and interior trim. The only option offered in the GV80, besides matte paint, is a rear-seat entertainment system.
“I think for us it’s about considering what the Genesis customer really wants,” said Mr Rowland.
“We feel that the customers buy our brand not because of price, but because it’s the car they really want, and with that in mind we set about trying to basically get to the best car we could offer which meant for us standardising the 3.5 turbo.”
“In terms of refinement, particularly for a vehicle of that size, the 3.5-litre V6 was best fitting to that effortless elegance in terms of driving dynamic… So the 2.5 we feel was maybe not as suited to our market’s expectations.”
The company says it has already received just under 100 deposits for the updated GV80, despite pricing only being released publicly today.
Genesis said that although it has pared back its G70 and GV80 lines, it isn’t necessarily planning to do the same across its entire model range.
“GV80 certainly isn’t a telecast for our future product lineup… it’s more so that when we analysed our sales mix, we saw 95 per cent of them were buying a Luxury Pack, so we reoriented the lineup accordingly,” said Mr Rowland.
“We will without a doubt analyse the full range, all sales channels and all trim mixes, where that leads us I can’t talk to.”
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