Software Will Make Genesis High-Performance

• Genesis wants to rival BMW M and Mercedes-AMG with EVs defined by software, not just hardware.
• Hyundai engineering boss says Genesis GV60 Magma won’t be a “corner rascal” like the Ioniq 5 N.
• The GV60 Magma will likely have some kind of agumented acceleration sound to add emotion to the driving experience

Genesis wanted to have its own hot sub-brand to compete with BMW M and Mercedes-AMG. So the Hyundai-owned luxury brand created its own performance division, Magma. Genesis cars bearing the Magma badge will be the company’s hottest offerings, and Genesis’ boss insists that they won’t just feel like a Hyundai in a fancy frock. In a new interview, he said software tweaks and features will make Magma cars feel wholly different.

It’s no surprise. The move to software-defined vehicles is the next big transition in the automotive industry after the shift from combustion power to electric. What it means is the mechanical part of a vehicle is now less important, and that the car is highly configurable via code alone. That allows the automaker to tailor unique personalities for each car, according to one of Genesis’ research and development bosses.

Speaking to Top Gear, Tyrone Johnson, head of the Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre, said that though the Genesis GV60 Magma and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N are built on the same E-GMP platform, they won’t feel the same. Johnson notes that “N is the ‘corner rascal,'” referring to a term Hyundai uses in its marketing to highlight the N’s fun-forward approach. A Magma isn’t about the track, Johnson says, although it will be track capable. It’s supposed to be a more sophisticated, luxurious driving machine, and making it feel like that is important.

Sharing a platform across brands runs the risk of producing vehicles that look different but feel pretty much the same, after all. While automakers frequently got the balance wrong in the past, leading to cries of “badge engineering,” the modern software revolution is making it a bit easier to differentiate vehicles.

So even though the GV60 Magma and Ioniq 5 N will have very similar power and acceleration figures, each will have a unique character and most of that character will be software-defined. Johnson went on to say, “I’ve done 40 years in this industry. It was all mechanical engineering. Now it’s all software. You can fundamentally change a car with software.”

Driving the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, it’s pretty clear that it was specifically designed to be tail-happy and fun to slide around corner in the right mode. It can also simulate a combustion engine and even gears that you can shift via paddles on the steering wheel to bring some of the excitement of driving a performance combustion car into an EV.

It will be interesting to see just how much the different software will be able to define the driving experience in the GV60 Magma. We already have one hint, as the Ioniq 5 N has a Kia sibling. The EV6 GT actually launched first, though it was far less aggressive than the N. For 2025, it gets the simulated gear shifting and acceleration sounds from the Hyundai, but generally the Kia looks and feels quite different from the Hyundai. 

Genesis hasn’t said whether it will give its hot EVs the same pretend engine and gears as Hyundai and Kia, but it seems confident that its offering will be different enough to make it its own product and justify its own higher price. We’ll see if that’s true when we drive one.