That is true as of today, but if they started designing a SUV based on the Santa Fe in 2014 or 2015 for introduction in 2017 model year (when Genesis Motors was launched) it would not have been that old. Back in 2015 the Santa Fe was an award-winning SUV.
The Santa Fe/Sport won some kudos when it first launched, but it hardly was clearly best of class.
The real reason they didn't do that is because Genesis Motors decided that all their vehicles will not be RWD based (even SUV's with AWD are either FWD or RWD based, and often offered without AWD option as FWD). I can "sort of" understand their desire to have RWD based SUV's only, but I think if they were able to launch a FWD based SUV for 2017 as a temporary stop gap, that would have been preferable and speed up the rollout of dedicated Genesis Motors dealerships.
Already addressed this issue (not surprisingly, didn't catch on w/ you).
The problem what that stop gap measure is that it will only confuse buyers when the next model switches to RWD and with it, comes a higher price.
Saw something similar when
Cadillac moved the 3G CTS into the midsize segment (with the ATS being
Cadillac's successor in the compact segment) - many confused buyers as to why the new CTS was so much more expensive.
And then there's not starting off the brand (
crucial) with products that meet expectations.
The Genesis placed
3rd in CR's latest Customer Satisfaction survey, Acura placed dead
last.
A big reason why Acura finished dead last is due to lukewarm tart jobs like the
ILX.
No dealership today can survive without a single SUV/CUV in their lineup. More than 50% of Lexus and Acura sales are SUV/CUV's. Even the new Bentley Bentayga SUV is now the best selling Bentley. Sedans are a dying breed, and Hyundai has missed the boat on both Hyundai and Genesis branded vehicles.
Really don't see what the issue is here.
By the time the 1st Genesis dealerships are built, the GV80 should be hitting the lots, with the GV70 soon to follow.
Certainly, Hyundai was smart enough to know that the Santa Fe Sport was selling like hotcakes. Just like the Ford Edge/Lincoln MKX, the SFS could have been leveraged into the luxury Genesis league.
Except, as I had already pointed out several times, Hyundai already had
capacity/supply issues with the SF/S - which wasn't solved until a couple of years ago when SFS production was started at Hyundai's 'Bama plant (with a corresponding reduction in Sonata and Elantra production).
There was simply no room to expand SF production and then add production of a SF-based Genesis CUV.
Hyundai still has capacity issues - such as with the new Kona CUV (not enough production capacity to meet demand).
Ford, otoh, had plenty of production capacity.
As the article above noted, "Lincoln’s bestselling SUV is attracting new drivers to the brand, with a conquest rate of nearly 40% as buyers migrate from Cadillac, Lexus and other brands. The redesigned vehicle is on track to deliver its best sales year since its introduction in 2007, according to Lincoln."
And that's a lot of
gobbly-goob speak.
Yes, Lincolns' CUVs are doing well for
Lincoln in the context of how
Lincoln sales have been over the past decade or so.
But in comparison to the competition, they have been disappointing.
The MKC is only selling
half as well as the NX and RDX (not yet breaking the
25k mark YTD).
The case is similar for the MKX.
YTD,
Lincoln has sold
28k of the MKX; meanwhile
Cadillac has sold
61k of the
XT5.
Considering that the markets (in any significant volume) for the MKC and MKX are basically just the US and China, wouldn't exactly say that's great ROI.
Instead of spending the $$ on developing a Genesis variant (along with tooling, marketing and other costs), Hyundai would be better off trying to bridge-that-gap by offering a higher (near lux) trim of the SF as Kia has done with the
Sorento (in the SX-L package).
Yes, they could have started developing one a couple years ago. But, Genesis wasn't launched until 2017, which at that time the SF/SFS would have been in their 5th year of production, which is a long time. If Genesis would have launched an SUV/CUV based on a 5 year old dated platform, I'm pretty certain it wouldn't have been well received by the media when it's up against similar vehicle by Lexus and Acura. How much the development costs would have been to make it worthy of the Genesis nameplate, only they know. And would it have been worth it for it only to be sold for 2 years? I'm sure they have good reasons behind their decision.
I'd like to see the details for all the assumptions. How much money was available to launch a new brand? How many hours of engineering is needed to take the existing platform and make it into a Genesis? Is there even any sense to build a new car on an old platform? If you are going to upscale a brand you expect to have certain luxury features. Putting them on an old chassis may not be very cost effective or even possible and without them it is not a vehicle that will stir the emotions of a new buyer but fancy wrapping on a Hyundai. You can ruin the reputation before the brand takes hold.
You guys can speculate all you want but I don't believe any of you are right until you can prove it with numbers. If you can show that the engineering time, tooling lead tile, marketing development, and testing time was readily available it is merely your opinion. Anyone know how many engineering hours, plant layout hours are needed to do the changeover to a newly branded vehicle?
Exactly all the reasons why
Cadillac waited until their new CUV platforms were ready to develop the additional CUVs to
Cadillac's lineup.
Sure, they could have done a rush job and based
Cadillac's 3-row CUV on the Lambda platform, but they knew it would be outdated by the time it hit the market.
Many of the salient points that have been brought up is discussed in the latest
CR's Talking Cars episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yckX2JgOPFU
Case in point, they talk about the upcoming new MB A Class sedan and the CLA/GLA (4 min mark).
And then the ILX (6 min mark)
And the Acura brand as whole (10:37 mark)
Genesis (11 min mark)
Note how they talk about Hyundai not going with a
gussied-up Hyundai for the Genesis brand.
As stated before, why did Hyundai wait until they developed a RWD platform for the Genesis/Equus and subsequently the Genesis brand?
They could have launched luxury sedan offerings earlier if they had just gussied up the Sonata and Azera (like basically what Acura and
Lincoln have done, and increasingly, Lexus and
Infiniti with their respective lineups).
As pointed out by a # of us here (including GM), the G90 is seen as a legitimate rival to the LS and even as a bargain option to the S Class by the auto press.
The same can't be said of the Conti, XTS, S90 and RLX.
The same can be said of the RX, MDX and JX/QX60 in comparison to the GLE and X5 (they simply don't compare).
And quite contrary to the by-line, think Genesis is the smart one.
Lincoln is doing what all the other Tier 1,5-Tier 2 lux brands are doing when it comes to their crossovers - going with the cheaper FWD layout (including
Infiniti these days).
But look what
Lincoln has to do when it comes to the pricing of its offerings.
The MKC and MKX undercut its rivals in price and yet, can't even close in sales volume.
Going the
tarted/gussied-up FWD Hyundai route would have meant a similar fate for the Genesis CUVs - having to compete on price in a very crowded market.
But by going the RWD CUV route, Genesis will stand out from the crowd as there really are only 2 major (volume) players - MB and BMW (yes, there's Jag and now Alfa).
Compare that to Lexus,
Infiniti, Acura,
Cadillac,
Lincoln and Volvo.
Like I had stated before, Hyundai wants Genesis to be seen as a lower-priced option to MB and BMW and not a lower priced option to Lexus and
Infiniti.
