The GV70’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Rav4 doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the GV70 and Rav4 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The GV70 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 Rav4’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 GV70 are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Rav4 doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The GV70 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 Rav4 doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
Using vehicle speed sensors and seat sensors, smart airbags in the GV70 deploy with different levels of force or don’t deploy at all to help better protect passengers of all sizes in different collisions. The GV70’s side airbags will shut off if a child is leaning against the door. The Rav4’s side airbags don’t have smart features and will always deploy full force.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the GV70. But it costs extra on the Rav4.
The GV70 has a standard blind spot warning system that 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 Rav4’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the GV70 has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist and automatically engage the brakes. Toyota charges extra for Rear Cross Traffic Alert on the Rav4.
Both the GV70 and the Rav4 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, 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, rearview cameras, driver alert monitors and available around view monitors.
The Genesis GV70 weighs 477 to 1203 pounds more than the Toyota Rav4. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.