For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Genesis G80 have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The BMW 8 Series Gran Coupe doesn’t offer pretensioners for the rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Genesis G80 are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The BMW 8 Series Gran Coupe doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the G80 and 8 Series Gran Coupe have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The G80 has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The 8 Series Gran Coupe’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the G80 with its optional rear seat reminder are reminded to check the back seat when a sensor determines the back seat is occupied. The 8 Series Gran Coupe doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The G80 has a standard front seat center airbag, which deploys between the driver and front passenger, protecting them from injuries caused by striking each other in serious side impacts. The 8 Series Gran Coupe doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
The G80 has standard Anti-Whiplash Front Head Restraints, which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Anti-Whiplash Front Head Restraints system moves the headrests forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The 8 Series Gran Coupe doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The G80 offers optional Parking Collision-Avoidance Assist-Reverse that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The 8 Series Gran Coupe doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The G80 has a standard blind spot warning system which uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the 8 Series Gran Coupe’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the G80 has a standard rear cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Rear cross-path warning costs extra on the 8 Series Gran Coupe.
Both the G80 and the 8 Series Gran Coupe have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, driver alert monitors, available all wheel drive and around view monitors.
For its top level performance in IIHS driver and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, roof strength and head restraint tests, its standard vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention system, its standard vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its standard headlight’s “Acceptable” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the G80 its highest rating: “Top Pick Plus” for 2021, a rating granted to only 73 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The 8 Series Gran Coupe has not been tested, yet.