After years of testing the luxury waters with its Genesis->ke2924 and Equus->ke3333 sedans, Hyundai->ke201 has finally decided to dive into the deep end and join the premium market with its own off-shoot global luxury brand. The new venture will be called Genesis and unlike its previous iteration as a model within Hyundai’s lineup, Genesis will be launched as a separate sub-brand that’s independent from Hyundai.

The new Genesis brand is expected to lock horns with the likes of Lexus,->ke47 Infiniti,->ke36 and even European names like BMW,->ke178 Mercedes,->ke187 and Audi.->ke14 It’s an ambitious leap for Hyundai, but one that was years in the making. As early as 2011, there’s already been talk within the company of launching a luxury sub-brand. It took longer than the Korean automaker intended it to, but now, the Genesis luxury brand has finally been given the green light.

Plans call for six new Genesis models to be launched by 2020. Each model is expected to be developed with an eye towards providing the highest standards of design, innovation, and performance, the three foundations of any luxury->ke505 brand that’s worth its salt. The Genesis brand will also adopt a new alphanumeric naming structure that a lot of its future competitors already use. The letter ‘G’ will come as standard since it stands for “Genesis” and it will be combined by numbers like 90, 80, or 70 to identify a specific model.

As early as now, there’s already been a groundswell of movement within Hyundai to move forward with the launch of the Genesis brand. For instance, designers have already developed the sub-brand’s official badge, a wing-type emblem that’s inspired by the badge currently being used by the Genesis models.

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Why it matters

While I’m not overly shocked by this announcement, I admit to being caught a little off guard by the timing. As I said, rumors of this happening have been on the wire for a few years now and Hyundai, for its part, has never denied its intention to be a bigger player in the luxury car segment.

But none of those things are important now because what matters is that Hyundai has finally announced that the Genesis model will in fact turn into a separate sub-brand similar to Lexus (Toyota) and Infiniti (Nissan). Considering how far Hyundai has come in the past decade or so, I’m excited to see what it has in store for the Genesis brand. Give Hyundai credit because it’s taking this venture very seriously; it has even created a Prestige Design Division that will be responsible for developing the models that will fall under the Genesis sub-brand.

Once the pieces are in place, the Genesis sub-brand is expected to be offered to the global market, beginning in the Korean, Chinese, North American, and Middle Eastern luxury car markets. As soon as the brand finds stability in those places, expansions into the European and other Asian markets are expected to follow suit.

So there you have it, folks. Hyundai has given the go-signal to split the Genesis out of its family cars and into a sub brand of its own. It’s going to be given substantial autonomy to compete against some of the established luxury brands in the market and knowing how ambitious Hyundai can get, I’m looking forward to see what it has in store for the Genesis sub-brand.

Hyundai Genesis

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