For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Genesis G90 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 Cadillac CT5 doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The G90’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The CT5 doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the G90 and CT5 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The G90 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 CT5’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 G90 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 CT5 doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
The G90 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 CT5 doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the G90. But it costs extra on the CT5.
Both the G90 and CT5 have rear cross-traffic warning, but the G90 has Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic.
The G90’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 CT5 doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the G90 and the CT5 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras and rear cross-path warning.
The Genesis G90 weighs 1034 to 1497 pounds more than the Cadillac CT5. The NHTSA advises that heavier cars are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
For its performance in IIHS driver-side and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, updated side impact, headlight, daytime pedestrian crash prevention, and nighttime pedestrian crash prevention testing, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the G90 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2023, a rating granted to only 29 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The CT5 has not been tested, yet.