Polestar 5 vs Genesis G80

What's the difference?

It’s finally here.

The Polestar 5 electric grand tourer (GT) has officially launched in Australia six years after the original Precept concept was revealed.

Thankfully many of the concept’s design cues have carried over to the production model and it continues Polestar’s history of offering GT cars - its first was the limited-production Polestar 1 which was only sold in left-hand-drive markets.

Like all current Polestars, the Polestar 5 is all-electric and competes against the likes of the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT.

We’ve already driven the Polestar 5 overseas, but this is the first time we’re experiencing it on local soil. Read on to see how it fares.

Remember those extra-long Australian luxury sedans like the Ford Fairlane and Holden Statesman/Caprice?

The patriotic choice in an era where that mattered and further protected by tariffs on imports that made them barely any more expensive than a base mid-sized Euro like a BMW 318i, they dominated the top end of the market with their sheer size outside, vast space inside and big-six or V8 grunt.

Like they used to say, there is no substitute for cubic inches.

Well, the spirit of these beloved local social-climbing classics lives on in just one modern car in 2025, the Genesis G80. Over three generations since 2008, it has been Hyundai’s tilt at the premium establishment, in much the same way as the Fairlane and Caprice were, and Toyota’s Lexus luxury brand still is.

We take a dive into the latest petrol-powered range-topper version, the 3.5T All-Wheel Drive (AWD) Sport Luxury (SL), which gives off more than its fair share of vintage HSV Grange vibes.