Road test: Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, the most remarkable EV I’ve ever driven

Monday, 6 May 2024

It’s 11.30pm and against my own better judgement I’m plugged in at a public EV charger. This isn’t a well lit charger at a petrol station or a mall. No, this is a charger in the corner of a big parking lot down an industrial lane. It’s pitch black all around me, the air is cold and crisp. A bit too Blair Witch Project for my liking on a Friday night.

You might be thinking this is the intro to some kind of electric vehicle charging disaster story, the prequel to a rant about infrastructure or range anxiety. But, it’s quite the opposite. I wanted to be here, because I wanted to drive as much as I could the next day in probably the most remarkable EV I’ve ever driven.

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is a significant car for a few reasons. It’s the new top-shelf variant of an award winning, critically acclaimed EV. It’s Hyundai’s most expensive model, priced from $134,990. Yeah, not cheap.

This is the brand’s first electric entry to its N performance line-up. Dual motors churn out a combined 448kW of power 740Nm, with those outputs jumping 30kW/30Nm when Boost Mode is active. Hyundai has countered this added oomph by cramming in a bigger battery; an 84kWh unit, the largest fitted to any Ioniq 5. Range is rated at 448km, and it can hurtle from a standstill to 100kph in a mere 3.4 seconds.

The biggest headline, though, is that the N represents a genuine stab by Hyundai at making an EV that can appeal to the traditional car enthusiast.

Plenty of carmakers have made fast EVs before obviously. The recipe is fairly simple. Turn up the wick on the motors, widen the track, add stickier rubber, firm up the damping, chuck some kind of Tron-like soundtrack inside for the driver, and you’re golden. Congratulations, you’ve likely created a car that will outperform an equivalent combustion-powered in every key performance metric.

Only, we know there is so much more to the story when it comes to performance cars that stir the soul. There’s a reason Ferrari is still persevering with making V12 engines and being celebrated for the fact. The new model it unveiled this week will cost more than a million bucks when it arrives in New Zealand, and yet it’s no quicker than a $84,990 Tesla Model 3 Performance to 100kph.

The reason enthusiasts celebrate Ferrari’s 9500rpm V12 is the inverse of why something like a Model 3 Performance isn’t nearly as coveted by your typical petrolhead as a Honda Civic Type R or Ford Mustang GT or Porsche 911. From idle to redline, these are mechanical, they’re characterful, they’re real. And fast it may be, the Tesla is not.

Hyundai’s attempt to bridge this gulf goes much further than simply pumping fake noises (N Active Sound+) through the Ioniq 5 N’s speakers, although those noises are certainly there. The EV N’s engine sound works alongside a simulated e-shift system, the pair together emulating the sound and feel of the 8-speed dual-clutch transmission and turbocharged 4-cylinder from the Hyundai i30 N.

The brand has also graced the N with a Drift Optimizer mode combined with an electronically controlled limited-slip differential, and something called ‘Torque Kick Drift’.

Through the former, drivers can send up to 100% of the Ioniq’s power to the rear end, making it a tyre-smoking drift demon. The latter, meanwhile, can be used to simulate a ‘clutch kick’ — helping experienced drivers initiate powerslides alongside a helpful swing in weight transfer and some quick twirling of the steering wheel. There are plenty of videos out there showing this is so much more than just a novelty. The Ioniq 5 N will absolutely, positively, drift and hold decent angle if you want it to.

If you’ve got 98 octane flowing through your veins, those last two paragraphs could well read like the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. And, I can understand it. Why simulate something already available on the market? Heck, the dual-clutch automatic i30 N the Ioniq 5 N’s synthetic sounds are based on is literally half its sticker price.

To be fair, it’s not quite an apples to apples comparison for a few reasons. For one, the Ioniq is quite a bit quicker in a straight line. It also brings with it all the benefits of its electric powertrain. No weekly stops for petrol, there’s vehicle-to-load charging functionality, and it can operate in complete silence when you want that kind of thing. The Ioniq 5 is also a lot more practical and current inside, with its huge legroom and headroom in the back, and up-to-date dash — dual screens, prolific metal fixtures, and slick design making it much more welcoming than the ageing i30.

Perhaps more to the point when it comes to this (somewhat pointless) comparison is that the Ioniq 5 N isn’t really battling the i30 N.

Enthusiasts that prefer the i30 N real petrol engine over the Ioniq 5 N’s fake one are obviously going to buy the former and pocket the $60k difference. The Ioniq 5’s real mission here is to show that there is a future for ICE emulation — that those who love ‘the classics’ will still be able to enjoy them for decades to come, albeit in a mimic-based form.

Who knows, maybe the car enthusiasts of tomorrow who’ve never touched a clutch pedal in their lives will get a kick out of this technology … a taste for what makes pushing a combustion powertrain so addictive to us simple petrol-loving folk but without those wretched tailpipe greenhouse gases. So, the question is obvious. Is all this software mumbo jumbo any good, or have the hundreds of hours that have gone into developing it been a complete waste of time?

In short, no. This thing is absolutely blimmin’ awesome.

To start, Hyundai deserves enormous praise for the accuracy of its e-shift dual-clutch gearbox. It works in the Ioniq 5 N almost exactly, to a T, as it does in the i30 N. Make your shifts via the tactile paddles at sane, normal spots in the rev range at low speeds, and the car smoothly accepts each shift. Upshift at a slightly odd spot in the rev range, and you can expect the car to lurch a little extra.

Run the car out to redline or execute a flurry of downshifts, and you’re treated to some simulated but fantastically accurate pops and bangs — often making a different kind of gurgly crackle each time. Downshift while the car is already bouncing off the limiter, and it will lock you out of the shift. Miss a shift at redline, and the car bounces off the limiter and chokes underneath you. The car will ‘engine brake’ on downshifts, in a staggered fashion based on your revs. It all feels so incredibly uncanny and natural.

The sound itself is interesting, like a turbocharged 4-cylinder but with a robot-like veneer towards redline. On the outside, you can hear it faintly. Inside, it sounds incredible — filling the air and enveloping you in the heat of the drive not unlike how that same noise hits when you’re fanging an i30 N.

In practice, the transmission has another massive unseen positive effect. Because there is a transmission with ‘cogs’ in the equation, it gives the driver more control over how power is delivered to the pavement and when. Something I often feel when driving hot EVs like the Ford Mustang Mach-E and MG4 XPower is that the number of touchpoints I have as a driver compared to a combustion performance car is greatly reduced.

When it comes down to bombing down a windy road, all I really have to play with is what I can translate through the steering, what my bum can feel through the chassis, and modulation of the pedals. In particular, it can be hard to get into a rhythm on a twisty road with these EVs when the margin between a cool 50% throttle and an overwhelming 90% throttle sometimes feels like just a few extra millimetres of pedal travel.

The lack of a gearbox might seem innocuous at first, but it actually plays a pretty big role in the process. What the Ioniq 5’s transmission does is give me a much improved sense of judgement in the car’s power delivery. I’m more confident in my throttle pedal usage, my brain is more engaged thinking about gear selection, and I’m therefore having more fun.

Unfortunately our booking of the Ioniq 5 N didn’t come with any race track mileage. So, we didn’t get to try out the model’s Drift Optimiser. What we did get to play around with was the 5’s improved E-GMP platform. Hyundai’s work on the stiffened-up architecture. Perhaps with a bit of help from the Drift Optimiser, the N can feel very rear-driven on occasion, mostly when you’re pinning it through tighter corners.

Hyundai has stiffened the platform and given it some hugely grippy Pirelli P-Zero rubbers. Alongside making the 5 feel more fluid on rotation, Hyundai’s mechanical gurus have also made the 5 feel surprisingly light footed. This comparative 2.2-tonne behemoth feels very hot-hatch-adjacent on a challenging road — heaps of grip, neutral turn-in, minimal body roll — but with the benefit of instant electric power with an added level of manageability. A lower centre of gravity than petrol-fed peers, too, thanks to its battery.

The only way to get the Ioniq 5 N’s full 478kW is by using the N Grin Boost button; the unmissable bright red self-destruct button on the right side of the steering wheel. This grants the driver a 10-second power and torque boost. Ironically, it shuts off the Ioniq 5’s e-shifter … instead delivering the 30kW/30Nm boost to a shrill, single-speed scream. The extra jolt is eye-opening and impressive, although I’ll concede I only used the feature a handful of times in my week with the Ioniq 5.

Hyundai is adamant that the Ioniq 5 N isn’t just a Kia EV6 GT with a different body and badge. And having driven both, I believe them. The EV6 is similarly quick; 430kW/740Nm for a 3.5-second 0–100kph time. But, they feel very different to drive quickly, and it feels like all the difference is in tuning, damping, and all of Hyundai’s clever sound stuff. This is way more fun.

The shopping list of changes I’d make to the Ioniq 5 N is pretty short. The driving position seems a little tall to me. The plethora of customisable N menus, whilst integral to the performance arm’s commitment to giving drivers as many options as possible, can be a little confusing to rattle through on the run. The active sound system did seemingly glitch once or twice. Its ride quality can feel a tad on the brittle side for Kiwi roads. And, even acknowledging how unique the Ioniq 5 N is, $134,990 is a lot of money. Especially when a Model 3 Performance is tens of thousands less.

Inevitably, all of the Ioniq’s performance modes utterly rip through its battery performance. We regularly saw efficiency figures north of 25kWh/100km, often spurred on by how ‘involved’ our driving was.

I want to underscore a key truth about this thing; it isn’t a perfect facsimile for a petrol-fuelled hot hatch or hot SUV. An i30 N is going to deliver bigger thrills and wider smiles, always.

The Ioniq 5 N is something that’s potentially much more important to the motoring world — something new, a near perfectly executed take on what it would be like to make an EV sound and feel like an internal combustion performance car.

It is to cars what the ‘Impossible Burger’ is to meat. It may not be your thing but, particularly when considered as a feat of engineering, it's impossible to not be impressed from the first bite.

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