The imminent local arrival of Genesis has been teased as part of Hyundai’s massive investment plans in Malaysia.
Hyundai has recently announced that it will be investing a whopping RM 2.159 billion ($479 million) in Malaysia from 2025 to 2030, as part of its efforts to revive its presently flagging fortunes over here. And while this huge pile of promised cash came with the announcement for the South Korean automaker to soon be bringing in a bunch of its new models locally soon, what is perhaps most interesting regarding this tease is that some of these upcoming cars might come featuring a winged logo rather than the usual oval H emblem.
Yes, Hyundai may well be currently considering to soon debut in its upmarket Genesis locally. If what is implied in the recent press release for the aforementioned investment into Malaysia is to be believed too, the South Korean automaker may even be planning for Malaysia to be the first site outside of its current sole production plant in Ulsan to assemble these premium models.
Now it is worth highlighting here that it is thus far unconfirmed yet as to the exact timeline for Genesis will be setting up shop locally. But going by what it implied in press release, the local assembly of any models from the upmarket sub-brand will only take place after Hyundai begins local production of its own premium MPV tentatively in mid-2025.
Similarly too, it is worth noting that there is no word thus far on which models exactly will Genesis be potentially planning to launch locally. Though the press release did helpfully narrow the options down a tad by stating that Hyundai intends to focus on SUVs and MPVs for its local assembly plans at least, in addition to adding too that internal combustion engine and hybrid models will be prioritised in the initial stages.
So with this in mind then, the mid-sized GV70 and large GV80 SUVs are really the two options in its lineup right now that fit the criteria. Then again, there could well be a chance that Genesis could also just bring in its IONIQ 5-based GV60 all-electric (and hence currently tax free) SUV as a fully imported example to get the ball rolling over here as soon as possible.
Incidentally also, it would be remissed to not add here that Hyundai has actually been considering the debut of the Genesis brand over here for a while now already. A right-hand drive GV80 was after all previously spotted locally back in mid-2020 as part of a regional ‘flying visit’ in preparation for an imminent market launch (and there were even rumours of several individuals placing hefty deposits to be the first in Malaysia to own one of these luxury SUVs), but unfortunately plans for its eventual Malaysian debut had fizzled out from then.
While not exactly a household name over here, Genesis has nevertheless sold over 1 million cars under its own name over the years. Its first model was the E-Class-rivalling G80 sedan that landed a year after it was spun off from its South Korean parent marque in 2015, while the latest hot piece of news regarding the brand is for it to soon debut a hot M-rivalling performance lineup under the Magma moniker.
