Hyundai’s Genesis luxury brand will launch its own high-performance division, Magma, with its first vehicle arriving next year. The brand teased the news in March and confirmed it this week at an appropriate place – the Goodwood Festival of Speed, one of the U.K.’s most storied automotive events.
A Well-Worn High-Speed Path
Many luxury automakers have high-performance units. Like BMW’s M division or the AMG unit of Mercedes-Benz, these in-house tuner shops take a brand’s conventional cars and remake them. Fortified with extra horsepower, bigger brakes, and retuned suspensions, their products cost more and carry cachet with car enthusiasts.
Genesis is still the new kid on the block in the luxury automaker space – though one with a reputation for excellent products that often cost less than comparable European models.
Magma could go a long way toward making Americans think of Genesis in similar terms to other luxury brands, though it takes time to earn the respect of automotive enthusiasts.
GV60 Magma
The brand will start with its GV60 – a compact electric vehicle (EV) that’s low-slung like a hatchback, with curvy good looks and interior flash like a crystal sphere for a gearshift and facial recognition technology to unlock the car for its owner.
The GV60 starts at $53,350 (including delivery fee), with prices rising to over $70,000, but we expect a Magma model to be priced closer to the $80,000 line.
Genesis builds its standard GV60 with between 225 and 429 horsepower, depending on trim level. Genesis hasn’t revealed details on what the Magma will do, but we expect it to borrow heavily from the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which makes 641 horses.
That model also uses beefy brake rotors, an enhanced suspension, and a drift mode for those who can afford to replace many tires.
In press photos, the GV60 Magma wears a searing orange paint job worthy of its name and aerodynamic enhancements like larger air intakes to cool the battery and canards to guide air to the rear wing.
Inside, “an authentic, Magma-exclusive sound system will provide a rich, dynamic auditory experience that further boosts the excitement of every ride.”
Genesis says it will start production of the GV60 Magma in the third quarter of 2025. Officially, the brand has only confirmed it for Korea and Europe, but automakers traditionally announce American sales separately and often a bit later than their home market debuts.
The company pointedly announced the car on its U.S. media site.
It will be just the first Magma model. Genesis says it “ultimately aims to develop a high-end variant of each model within the existing lineup, maximizing both aesthetics and performance.”
