Head of Hyundai's prestige brand says nein, nyet and non to hothouse variants

Hyundai’s Genesis brand will not field high-performance variants to match in-house tuners such as those from BMW’s M Division.

That was the word straight from Manfred Fitzgerald himself, the head of the Genesis Division.

On Saturday of last week, Fitzgerald was present for the global unveiling of the G70 in Korea and had this to say in response to this question from motoring.com.au: will there be N Division variants of Genesis models moving forward?

“I don’t think so right now,” he replied.

“Performance will not be on the same forefront of differentiator as it is today for ICEs [internal combustion engines]. Everybody is capable of doing an electric motor and putting it in a car, so the performance values will almost be the same. Nobody’s going to be interested in ‘A’ or ‘B’, so I think that will come down to a level playing field.

“Trying to tack something on top of that, I don’t think that will be rationally, really a wise move.”

In essence then, electric motors already promise the potential to outperform large-displacement petrol engines that are heavy on fuel and not especially good for the environment. Electric vehicles are more cost-effective to develop, and branching out into high-performance variants won’t require the same level of time and effort (or extra turbochargers and reciprocating parts) as high-output petrol engines.

Presumably Tesla’s Model S is the paradigm for that thinking, but Porsche is headed in the same direction. Other established brands will follow, and there’s little doubt that Hyundai will be among them, with new eco-friendly vehicles in the works.

But much of the appeal of tuning brands like BMW M is the character, sound and motorsport heritage that goes with the brand. Electric vehicles just don’t have that iconic stature – and some would argue they can’t be a surrogate for a traditional prestige muscle car, just as an electric train for suburban commuting can’t hope to replace a steam locomotive hauling an inter-city express. Fitzgerald says he understands the nostalgic aspect.

“I grew up in that era… that was all right at the that time. I’m just looking forward to the future and I just don’t believe that that will still have the same power and same meaning as it did back then.”

Presumably cars that can’t meet upcoming emissions legislation will become progressively more expensive without necessarily being faster than more efficient electric vehicles. What Fitzgerald was stating explicitly was that electric cars like the Model S or the Mission E will make petrol-powered muscle cars redundant.

“If you look at the performance value of an electric vehicle today, there are a lot of ICEs that really struggle to keep up with that,” he said.

Fitzgerald believes that weight is the major factor currently holding back EVs as the performance cars of the future. He insinuated that Hyundai engineers are hard at work finding ways of reducing weight, which would help EV range, as well as acceleration.

The Genesis exec says that Hyundai’s prestige brand is just a few short years from moving heavily into eco-friendly vehicles that seem likely to be the basis for high-performance EVs from the brand.

“What we said is that we will develop – around 2021, 22 – two dedicated platforms. And on those two dedicated platforms we will develop dedicated models.”

Presumably one will be a platform for a smaller footprint of vehicle range and the other will perhaps be up around G80 size as a median point. Fitzgerald did indicate that Genesis will not be headed downmarket, in terms of size. He told Aussie journalists that the sedan line-up was “now pretty complete”, suggesting Genesis won’t be adding an A3 sedan rival. The G70 on that basis is as small as the company will go – in the near future at least.

But there are SUVs on the horizon too, and one of those may be a smaller model. It’s believed that the GV80 will broadly share its footprint with the next generation of G80 sedan, which will ride on a modular platform. The smaller GV70 will also be based on that paltform. But there is talk of an SUV smaller than the GV70, and it’s this vehicle that might be the smaller of the two eco platforms Fitzgerald mentioned.

Scott Grant, Hyundai Australia COO, told motoring.com.au that the importer had been discussing the need for a brand-boosting performance arm for Genesis “for some time.”

“It’s a requirement for this market that’s been made very clear. You’ve only got to look at AMG’s success and the percentage of their total business to indicate that Australians have got a real interest in these kinds of vehicles…

“That message is going through loud and clear, but [as] you can imagine, there are lots of priorities and limited resources. Everything needs to be planned in its time.”

But the planning just doesn’t allow for Genesis models with more grunt.