NEW YORK – One of the last holes in the Genesis lineup has been a large SUV, likely with three rows of seating, but it seems it won’t be a hole for long. Among a number of Genesis debuts in New York is the Neolun concept. It’s a large, flagship luxury SUV, and it previews both a production model, as well as offering hints at where Genesis design is headed.
The exterior is very simple, consisting of an upright, two-box SUV shape and clean panels. The only real detailing comes in the gently curved corners, large wheels, the two-tone paint scheme and the signature dual lighting. The latter of which clearly takes after the multiple Genesis X concepts with the suggested grille shape. Luc Donkerwolke, the Genesis chief creative officer, said the design takes after moon-shaped jars made in Korea.
The Neolun also features rear coach doors, similar to those on the Lincoln Continental Coach Door Edition. And Genesis notes that this might be a feature that actually makes it to production.
Opening those doors reveals a far more exciting interior. The whole thing is covered in purple cashmere and leather, with the seats getting diamond stitching in some spots, and the door panels appear to have button tufting. The dashboard features a rather enormous flexible screen that can unroll to different heights depending on the need (say, low for instruments, or high for stationary video viewing). The front seats can swivel to face the rear to create a little lounge, one that features real wood flooring. An elaborate sound system is featured, and one of the tweeters swivels into view from the back of a crystal sphere on the dash. And for heating, there are radiant panels on almost every hard surface of the interior. This apparently is a nod to Korean “ondol” floor heating that dates back thousands of years. But we’re curious if it might also be a more efficient way of heating the cabin than by heating air, which would be a big benefit in an EV, which this SUV could potentially be. Oddly, there only seems to be two rows of seats, but we would expect a production model to have at least the option of a third row.
Genesis wouldn’t say when we’ll see a production version of the Neolun, but they said that they have a flagship SUV like it in development. They also noted that Genesis rarely shows concepts without some idea of having it apply to production models. That leaves us wondering when we’ll finally get the Genesis X, but also confirms that we should see something like Neolun soon, maybe in a year or two. We could even see it using the same basic platform as the Kia EV9, which is an already-available three-row electric SUV.