Genesis Was Bold Enough To Challenge BMW’s X6 With the All-New GV80 Coupe, Rep Explains

To innovate in the modern auto industry, and we mean to push the envelope, you need to have one thing above all else. In some cultures, we call it chutzpah; in others, cajones; and in others still, they call it sisu. So when Genesis had the stones to challenge the BMW X6 and Mercedes-Benz GLC in the Coupe SUV segment, this was nothing short of an impact statement. In short, no luxury segment dominated by German and Japanese brands was safe from South Korea.
To understand why Genesis had the stones to try building an SUV Coupe and what they planned to differentiate it from the competition, we had to go to Minneapolis, among the first press to drive the all-new GV80 Coupe. After the test drive was over, and boy, was it a thrill ride, I had the chance to sit down with a man who could explain just that. Say hello to Trevor Lai, Senior Group Manager of Product Planning at Genesis Motor North America. Lai is just the kind of guy to explain why Genesis had the brass you-know-whats to challenge the notion of coupe SUVs being too ostentatious and too silly.

Indeed, the reputation of coupe SUVs precedes the Genesis brand itself by a decade or more. For these reasons, they are often laughed at and mocked relentlessly. But for Lai and his team, the key to breaking this mold is a liberal sprinkling of trademark Genesis ingenuity. "We're taking a look at this from two different angles. Number one, the thing we wanted to do is draw from a little bit from automotive history. And basically from post WWII up until i'd say about the 2000s, cars [non SUVs], were very big in terms of sales," Lai said of what the global auto industry used to look like.

"A lot of that had to do with the coupe layout. A coupe, as we know, is a bit more stylish version of a four-door; typically, in the past, it had two doors. Over the past 15 years or so, we noticed this trend where everyone's going to this whole crossover thing, and we see the first crop of those come up and some of the players like Mercedes and BMW," Lai elaborated. "But you started losing a lot of these stylish versions of the bread and butter. The bread and butter being sedans on the car side and a large boxy vehicle with a large cargo hold on the SUV side. How do you execute something more stylish yet you still have four doors? Could you carry something like a coupe into the SUV world, that was point number one."

With a market already saturated with heavyweights, the only chance the GV80 Coupe had to compete was by introducing a certain flair for performance and high technology that could undercut the competition at its price point without making any sacrifices. As Lai points out, this is no easy task. But it's a gamble that's now paid off in spades. "Point number two is that some of our competitors are already playing in this space. But I think the difference with our vehicle compared to some of the folks you've mentioned is to take a distinctly American approach to the coupe," Lai said of the strategy Genesis hopes will make North Americans fall in love with the GV80 Coupe.

"We have a lot of voice in our collaborations with our home ship in South Korea. We said what we wanted to do, and luckily, the design side agreed that there's white space for a more stylish execution of an SUV. What we call it is going to be a coupe. That began the evolution of what became the GV80 Coupe," Lai said of Genesis' prized new vehicle. With a twin-turbocharged V6 engine and optional electric supercharger, plus all the latest touchscreen infotainment and driver assist technology, the GV80 Coupe is nothing short of a juggernaut in its market segment.

However, achieving the results seen before us requires a fair amount of cohesion between the product planning and design side of things, a relationship that Lai Happily stated has never been stronger than at Genesis. "I don't want to speak on behalf of the design side. But from what I understand, the coupe body style was something they had already worked on even before our GV80 SUV even launched. At that time, we were planning the GV70, one class smaller of an SUV," Lai said of the exciting time frame between the launch of the GV70 and GV80.

"In a sense, it was a white-space project. Where are we going to go with a larger SUV Coupe? With a larger canvas, you can do a lot more with a vehicle. The proportions look right, the wheel size and wheel arches look better, and that was already a study that they did independently from the product planning side," Lai remarked. "We work very closely with design to make sure things are in lockstep. Designs are nothing if it's not going to sell. So we made sure that whatever we end up doing, whatever we end up showing, it needs to be something that's positioned for success, and success is measured in a very different way on the design side than the business side. The trick is aligning the two sides together."

But even so, it might be hard for some folks to get over the nomenclature Genesis has applied to the GV80 Coupe. To some minds, it doesn't matter how stylish and cool the vehicle is. Without the absence of two rear doors, it just isn't a coupe in their eyes. But to that, Lai wanted to point out how there's actually no accepted standard of what constitutes a coupe vs a sedan or an SUV. For this reason, Genesis had the liberty to get creative. "For us at Genesis, it's one of those things where we see an evolution of the automobile. As consumer tastes evolve, so goes with it the definition of what something is," Lai said of the ever-changing dynamics of the auto industry as a whole these days.

"So therefore, that puts us into a more fluid dynamic in what you can call what you want to call it." Keep in mind, as Trevor's assistant and PR correspondent at the table pointed out during our conversation, that the word "coupe" in the classical French definition simply means "to cut." Typically, this applies to the cutting out of a sedan's rear passenger doors to create what most people would classify as a coupe. However, through the GV80's design cues, they just as easily cut out the rear hatch area to make it more streamlined. In this way, the GV80 coupe is far more aerodynamic than its SUV counterpart while appearing to be in motion even when it's parked.

This end result, having run through several layers of refinement in its concept phase before it enters production, is a result of a "three-way conversation between us [product planning], the R&D side, and the design side." What winds up on the other side is nothing short of breathtaking. Compared to the pompous and silly-looking coupe SUV offerings from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi, the GV80 coupe looks handsome and even downright distinguished. Of course, it also has the horsepower to match. Trevor Lai says there's only a three-cubic-foot difference in cargo space between the coupe and the SUV GV80 variants.

Put it all together, and the GV80 Coupe is a vehicle that should make BMW and Audi executives quake in their fine polished shoes. But will it translate to sales success? Well, it's a bit early to tell just yet. But I can say that no sooner did I fly back from Minnesota than I started seeing GV80 Coupes here and there out and about in my hometown. With that in mind, the tentative results should be nothing short of positive for Genesis this year. Many thanks to Trevor Lai and his team for the inside scoop on one of the most exciting new car launches of 2024.