For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Genesis GV60 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 Chevrolet Bolt doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Genesis GV60 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 Chevrolet Bolt doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the GV60 and Bolt have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The GV60 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 Bolt’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.
The GV60 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 Bolt doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
The GV60 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 Bolt doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The GV60 has standard Parking Collision-Avoidance Assist-Reverse that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Bolt doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The GV60 has all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Bolt doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
The GV60 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 Bolt’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the GV60 has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist and automatically engage the brakes. Chevrolet charges extra for Rear Cross Traffic Alert on the Bolt and the Bolt’s Rear Cross Traffic Alert does not include automatic braking.
The GV60’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The Bolt doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the GV60 and the Bolt 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 and rearview cameras.
The Genesis GV60 weighs 1072 to 1301 pounds more than the Chevrolet Bolt. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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 “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the GV60 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 112 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Bolt is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick.”