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 Alfa Romeo Giulia doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The G80’s optional pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Giulia doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
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 Alfa Romeo Giulia doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the G80 and Giulia 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 Giulia’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 are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Giulia 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 Giulia 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 Giulia doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The G80 Sport Prestige has a 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 Giulia doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the G80. But it costs extra on the Giulia.
The G80 Sport/Sport Prestige has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Giulia only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
Both the G80 and Giulia have rear cross-traffic warning, but the G80 has Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The Giulia’s Rear Cross-Path Detection doesn’t automatically brake.
Both the G80 and the Giulia 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, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras and rear cross-path warning.
The Genesis G80 weighs 480 to 932 pounds more than the Alfa Romeo Giulia. 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 G80 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2023, a rating granted to only 50 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Giulia last would have qualified as only a “Top Safety Pick” in 2016.