2023 Genesis G90’s Highway Driving Assist II: Not Driving Is a Luxury

Context is everything when it comes to road trips. Are you loafing along in a cacophonous rented box truck with all of your belongings, on your way to a new home? Bzzzzt! Game-show buzzer! Hauling the entire family in the filthy minivan to see yet more family over the holidays? Bzzzt! Just had a new baby, but needed to fly to Los Angeles on the company dime to drive a brand-new, $101,295 2023 Genesis G90 luxury sedan some 1,400 miles over several days from California to Texas—alone? Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.

Having already introduced the G90, both with our 2023 Car of the Year award and, more specific to the Makalu Gray model pictured here, our arrival story last month, you're already aware we'll be spoiled testing one for the next year. At least this author will be spoiled for the next year. Everyone else back at the office? Sorry. Anyway, the G90's luxury-car-as-salve story doesn't get any more on the nose than our acquisition of our long-term test model, which arrived at MotorTrend's California HQ early in 2023—just after this author's firstborn arrived. In a bid to keep my marriage together, I delayed the G90's long-distance retrieval a few weeks, until the end of February.

I probably should have delayed it more, because when I left for the airport, it was with a burning scowl from my wife. "It's for work!" doesn't, well, work, when that includes three days (and two decadently quiet full nights of sleep) away from our new 7-pound tornado siren—I mean, our new bundle of joy. Also, having Googled what a G90 is, she made several sarcastic-seeming suggestions to "enjoy the massaging seats" and "maybe don't come home." We love each other so much.

She's right, though. Regardless of your destination, the G90 is a mighty fine way to reach it. And a multiday trek across America's Southwest, down big empty highways and through stunning scenery, is a great way to get acclimated with our new Genesis sedan. I flew from Dallas-Fort Worth to Los Angeles, picked up the G90, and steered its long hood east to head back. My route would trace I-10 to Phoenix then southeast to Tucson, Arizona, before going through Las Cruces, New Mexico, and picking up I-70 and 380 on to Lubbock, Texas, leaving a straight shot back down 380 to Dallas. All in, it was just over 1,400 miles, and Google Maps pegged the journey at 24 hours of drive time. And I only drove perhaps 15 percent of it unassisted.

Like other modern large luxury barges, our G90 comes equipped to pour itself down the road with as little effort on the driver's part as possible. Our 3.5T E-Supercharger model's air suspension helps, particularly in the Comfort drive mode. Ditto the smooth and quiet twin-turbo and electrically supercharged V-6 engine. But we came to most appreciate the Highway Driving Assist II system, which incorporates an accurate lane-centering, self-steering function with an adept radar-based adaptive cruise control.

HDA II doesn't merely take over steering, throttle, and braking duties on freeways—it lessens the driver's load. A single press of the adaptive cruise control button (provided the lane departure system is already activated) sets your cruise speed and initiates the full lane keep setup. Once the lane graphics on the driver's digital display light up green, you know you're good to take your hands off the wheel—at least for brief periods. We found the system needed only the occasional steering wheel nudge (and for our attention to remain on the road ahead) to stay satisfied.

Approaching a slower-moving car? Relax. Swat the turn signal stalk to the appropriate side, and the G90 will attempt an automated lane change. Again, these often went without a hitch, even in relatively dense moving traffic, and with clear graphic representation of what was happening via the digital gauge cluster (as you can see in Genesis' video below). This feature is one of the bigger advances of HDA II—Genesis sold other models previously with an earlier, less capable HDA system. Between HDA II and the massaging seats, the G90 is almost better than flying.

Our complaints with HDA II are few. The attention tracking feature can mistake simple glances at your mirrors (anywhere but straight ahead, out the windshield) for "distraction" and scold you accordingly. Even the shortest following distance feels too far behind the car ahead. And there were times our hands were on the wheel and the system still chided us to take hold of the wheel, lest the system disengage.

As mentioned earlier, between California and Texas, I used HDA II most of the journey. There were a few freeways where the full HDA II system wasn't available (its logos remained grayed out in the cluster display, though adaptive cruise and lane keep assist continued working), likely because the parameters for its use weren't met. Using the system is easy, and unlike some competitors, which stiffen up the steering when running a self-steering function, such that retaking control of the car can result in unintentionally excessive steering inputs (to "break free" the wheel from its robotic grip, a major demerit in Teslas featuring "Autopilot with Full Self Driving"), the G90 lets drivers add inputs then cede control back to the computers seamlessly. Of all the G90's luxuries, which pamper whether you're driving on a freeway or a city street, Highway Driving Assist II is among its more decadent; we found it really helps cut fatigue on long journeys. After three days on the road, we arrived in Dallas refreshed—helpful when facing down more long nights with a newborn.