Gadgetory

Mondays Genesis it was the first announcement but that company was gonna make luxury cars well now the new ones laughing anymore let's try the second generation Genesis as it comes along to finish the job and well finished it is unless you eat a lot of carrots you might never know this is a Hyundai it barely says so anywhere and where it does in very small type it communicates Genesis in these winged badges that could have been a trite from Bentley now look at the overall proportions you've got a long hood a short deck and kind of a coupe like almost fastback roofline all of this communicates more youth than we expect from so-called nice luxury cars another thing to look at here is the lack of gaudy jewelry in the past the Korean carmakers have been very given to going kind of over Lardon when they want to communicate luxury this one's got European restraint structurally notice this the car is almost the exact same length nose-to-tail as the outgoing first gen car but they've pushed the wheels out three inches the wheelbase between the axles that's a big stretch in automotive terms it gives the car shorter front and rear overhangs that look sporty ER it also should give it more directional stability and a nicer ride the first thing I noticed inside this Genesis is how handsome it is that restraint I talked about on the exterior carries over inside it's got a lot of Kia DNA he has always been more of your your sort of dwell magazine Herman Miller no look and I knew was always a little bit fuddy-duddy not anymore the sole concession might be this clock but even that's been modernized nicely directly in front of me is a bit of a surprise traditional gauges with dials a lot of cars in the premium category have gone to all video here it doesn't bother me though because I've got a very useful very clear LCD helper panel in front now the main LCD is of course this guy this is an upgraded head unit by the way there are two levels of navigation head unit this larger one is a 720p high-def 9.2 inch LCD it is a touchscreen but I almost hate to touch it it does show fingerprints very readily instead you've got the Hyundai controller that is along the lines of what many other car makers have navigation is a good system we've seen this basically before in Hyundai's I like the fact that it's well rendered it's very clean when you do hit one of these menus four things happen right away fast touch response now your media controls are all up here a quick look basically everything you need is in there AM and FM with HD radio satellite radio is well done this is a full implementation of satellite radio which includes pause and restart so it will buffer your show if you need to pause it for a moment also you can set up a favourites sort of a hunt list so if you want to be alert at any time Rod Stewart is playing on any satellite radio channel and tune to it you can enter things like that you can get your Genesis with built-in sound hound that app you may have used on your phone to figure out what song you're hearing but oddly it's only available on the bass head unit in this car not our upgraded one now let's go to blue link blue link used to be Hyundai's basically version of OnStar a lot of find your car crash notification stuff it's getting more interesting though you now can search for destinations live on the air via Google do an internet search and then say take me there that's a trick that pretty much the Germans had to themselves until recently you've got sent a car of course from your Google navigation and then the usual Diagnostics and such you've got Siri eyes free support in this car as well so if you want to use this voice button to actually call up Siri on your iOS device that will work and finally I want to show you the hut on this car the head-up display is very ambitious it's well done it'll show me blind spot Lane Departure navigation speed all kinds of information but it doesn't do it all that well I find it's often kind of crooked the way it's mounted there seems to be some kind of a wobble in the laminate of the windshield so as I move my head around the whole thing kind of shakes like jello they're halfway there oh by the way this vehicle supports Google glass for some basic functions like being able to find your car send a Pio eye from glass to your car be able to handle things like status checks of whether it's locked or unlocked it's the first car maker we know if to do that on the market all genis is the right phrase have a single transmission choice 8-speed automatic through a very classic PRN D gate a shiftable side over here paddles on the wheel there's one little Buried button right here when you press this you can go between an eco mode a sport mode a normal mode and you can also get into a snow mode with this vehicle rear cam is standard on this car unlike some expensive German cars I could mention and it has two views you've got your standard view like so with trajectory prediction and a top view that lets you look straight down and really get that last inch figured out it's good quality not the best step seen now up in the engine bay you can't laugh at Hyundai anymore they aren't the maker a bunch little imbalanced fours the way they were back in the 90s this is a beautiful v8 it's their tau series it's a 5 liter with direct injection of course continuously variable valve timing as any modern engine has today four valves per cylinder dual overhead cam all the basic tricks are here but no turbochargers no superchargers you don't need that when you've got this kind of displacement here's the proof 420 horse 383 pound-feet of torque that's pretty good even though the car does weigh over 4,500 pounds it's a pretty big vehicle yet 60 comes up in around 5.2 seconds the down setting is only gonna get 15 23 mpg and part of the issue there is Hyundai has yet to introduce anything like hybrid ization auto start-stop even brake force regeneration this car basically lets its momentum go now the first thing you're going to figure out about the Genesis sedan is that this ain't no BMW the handling is no slouch but this is more tuned toward comfort for isolation of engine sounds when you want a lot of power you more or less get it in sport of course it's even more magnified turn on that active lane-keeping technology and I dare you to overpack or fix it gets involved as soon as I start to drift toward that line and it's really aggressive as well as being very smart and nuanced in addition to that active Lane correction it's also got some steering guidance where it'll find the curve in the road slight curve we're talking about and guide you along and keep you in the lane you can also get this car to stop all the way down to zero from up to 50 miles an hour that's part of its pre collision technology adaptive cruise control of course that's almost required on the car in this class but its standard on this car not in all its competitors you've got cross traffic alert you've got blind spot technology you don't have any parking assist on this car though which is interesting much as it leaves out things like start/stop and brake regeneration it's got some odd holes in its technology line up in some if I were on the market for a large imported luxury sedan right now this is absolutely on the short list period okay let's price our Genesis sedan 5 oh the v8s about fifty to five with destination there's really only one box to tick off to take it fully CNET style and that's to add the ultimate package which cost thirty to fifty that brings an adaptive suspension the head-up display that I'm about premium navigation which we have 17 speaker lexicon audio and a power trunk opener and closer now here's where I'd like to price out the all-wheel drive upgrade but like with that sound town integration you've got to go down scale to get it but these six can have all-wheel-drive the v8 cannot now here's the question I've got you could do this car for little under fifty six thousand but you have to also consider the v6 it has excellent power on paper even though I've not driven it personally four hundred pounds less most of that comes off the nose and that might make for the perfect balance it's not unlike the early Lexus SC s where the smart money went for the six not the eight