Review: Hyundai Ioniq 5 N

Many car companies have crazy-performance sub-brands that cater both to auto engineers’ genetic predisposition to show off, and customers for which normal acceleration and handling simply isn’t hairy enough. BMW has its M division, Range Rover has SVR, or Special Vehicle Operations, Hyundai has N.

The “N” apparently refers to two things: the Namyang district in South Korea, home of Hyundai's Global Research & Development Center, where N was founded; and the Nürburgring in Germany, where all the N models are tested at ridiculous speed until, one presumes, their tires explode in clouds of shredded rubber.

Well, Hyundai has its first electric N model, the Ioniq 5 N. WIRED was mighty impressed with 2021’s vanilla Ioniq 5 and found it hard to fault. One criticism we did have at the time was that some might have expected the EV to be a touch sportier. The 5 N is here to address this flaw—perhaps to an excessive degree. It’s also clear that Hyundai has developed this Ioniq 5 on steroids with the intent that it be what most auto obsessives call a “proper driver’s car,” whether you’re into electric or not.

Audio Illusion

Photograph: Hyundai

Apart from the max 641 bhp, zero to 62 mph in a shocking 3.4 seconds, top speed of 162 mph, a race mode that drops power just enough to let the N lap the Nürburgring in under eight minutes twice without overheating, and a frankly bewildering array of customizable options for tweaking almost every aspect of the 5 N’s handling and performance, the most immediately obvious feature here of a driver-focused approach is the N’s “e-Shift.”

With e-Shift engaged, the steering wheel paddles combine with the car’s motors, regenerative braking system, and 10-speaker sound setup (two outside, eight inside) to simulate internal-combustion car gear changes—not just audibly, but physically too.

Fake engine noise roars throughout the cabin, while the motors and the regen braking manipulate torque resistance to simulate the momentary dips and changes in thrust you get while shifting gears. These “dips” are married with a corresponding change in fake noise, and combine to produce an eerily convincing sensation of driving an ICE car. There’s even increased regen braking and better acceleration at higher fake revs.

Of course, Hyundai is blatantly pulling a con here and trying to fool you. But as with all illusions, if it works, even though you know it’s complete artifice, you just don’t care. And I didn’t. In fact, I loved it. And this is from someone who has until now detested—or perhaps “loathed” is a better word—fake engine noise.

How Hyundai has pulled off this trick is seemingly down to a whole year of software development plus extensive simulation and track testing just for this feature. Tyrone Johnson, new managing director of Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Center, and previously one of the people behind the recent Ford Focus RS, confessed to me that he wasn’t immediately sold on the concept.

“When they first came up with the idea, I thought in order to generate this [ICE] feeling you have to cut torque [from the electric motors], simulating the torque drop in a ‘real’ car,” he says. “And that means the car is slower. Why would you want to make it slower? Then they did a test on the Nürburgring, and over about 7 minutes and 45 seconds it made the grand difference of three seconds with the ‘gear shifting’ on. That's it. Three seconds loss. So in everyday driving it’s basically nothing.”

Johnson goes further: “In fact, I would suggest that non-skilled drivers will actually be faster with e-Shift on. Why? Because the shifting communicates to them much better what the car is doing. Without that they don't know. A nonprofessional driver would have to guess what's happening.”

I’m a non-skilled driver. Very much so. And Johnson is right, I believe I was faster with e-Shift turned on going round the Parcmotor Castellolí circuit at the brand-hosted event in Barcelona. It was a valuable lesson: such audio trickery, something until now I have universally derided in EVs, can improve the driving experience, even if it's in admittedly very specific circumstances.

Photograph: Jeremy White

Photograph: Jeremy White

Even now I am not sure why this works in the 5 N and not in anything that’s come before it. Perhaps it was the extra adrenaline the combined torque drops and fake engine roar elicited? Or maybe the added gravitational sensations forcing greater concentration? Or both? Regardless, it turns out these systems can genuinely work, with two important caveats: one, if a car brand truly grafts to make it right; and two, if you’re unskilled enough to require the artificial audio aid in the first place.

There’s a delicious irony here, of course. The 5 N is aimed at people who supposedly really know how to drive—but if you do, you shouldn’t use one of its flagship features as you’d be signaling that actually you can’t drive the car to its full potential.

Successful Design Tweaks

If the idea was to take the standard Ioniq 5 and alter the look to make it appeal to those who clearly like to hoon around, then Hyundai can consider this mission accomplished. The 5 N overtly signals its performance abilities. But, admirably, somehow the makeover is not vulgar.

Photograph: Hyundai

The design elements that date the original Ioniq 5—the unnecessary flaring detail on the wheel arches, the ever-so-slightly-too-pointy front and rear bumpers—have thankfully been tweaked and fixed on the N version, and will no doubt appear on a regular Ioniq 5 refresh soon. Improved aero elements including the rear diffuser do not seem shoehorned into the design, but almost like they were always intended to be there.

Considerable strengthening has been done, too—40-plus extra welds and meters of additional adhesive used to stiffen the chassis to the tune of 11 percent extra torsional rigidity. The steering mounting has been strengthened along with the suspension subframes, as have the battery and both front and rear motor mounts. As the front motor gives 223 bhp and the rear 378, and for 10-second spurts both can be boosted for that combined max 641 bhp (by pressing the “N Grin Boost” button) from the 84-kilowatt-hour battery, something was needed to cope with all that extra power. So, new axles have been deployed, with the rear getting an electronically controlled limited slip differential.

Photograph: Hyundai

The interior is very similar to what you'll fine in the already excellent Ioniq 5. Upgrades are the obviously better racing seats, pedals, and so on. Real physical buttons remain where needed. The steering wheel with its extra four performance buttons, and the software operating system with that ridiculous level of customization available (which will likely take users months to fully grasp) are the primary indicators that you’re in an N.

Some brief examples of the kinds of customization you can dig into include six drive modes, two of which you can change to your heart’s desire, tweaking motor response, torque distribution, steering weight, damper stiffness, differential locking, and stability control. The heads-up display layout can be switched around. The fake engine sound can be changed or dispensed with, but you’ll need the noise on to activate that entertaining fake gear-shifting. And, yes, of course there is a drift mode.

Built Fast to Last

Impressive as the sensory fakery undoubtedly is on the 5 N, I can’t help but wonder if all this fiddling and extra engaging and disengaging of the motors plus extra regen braking might not be good in the long-term for the racing Ioniq. Johnson, however, is not at all concerned.

“All of our cars run 10,000 kilometers on the Nürburgring. Which, as far as we know, is more than anybody else,” Johnson says. “So we do 10,000 kilometers almost at the limit of running.” But has Hyundai run simulations on what all this ICE-aping will do over the lifetime of the 5 N? “Yes, we’ve run simulations.” Any problems? “We haven’t managed to run them long enough to show any. We considered running it to failure—but at some point in time, you just have to stop. There’s nothing we have found in simulation or the real world.”

So, there you have it. A pimped Hyundai SUV with Lamborghini speed that the company has tried its very hardest to break but hasn’t managed yet. It’s quite an endorsement.

Photograph: Hyundai

Perhaps still on a mission to break the 5 N, Hyundai has just sent it up Pikes Peak International Hill Climb to show off what it can do. (If you haven't watched Climb Dance, you should.) Well, it actually sent three cars up: one production 5 N, and two Ioniq 5 N TA (Time Attack) models with high-performance shocks, motorsport-spec brakes, and slick tires, as well as increased rear motor output by 37 horsepower. The TA won the exhibition class with a climb of 9 minutes, 30 seconds, while the production 5 N “driven by a a PPIHC rookie” managed an impressive 10 minutes, 49 seconds.

Photograph: Hyundai

Speaking of rookies, it’s going to be interesting to see what kinds of drivers actually buy the 5 N with all its prodigious power and aggressive additions to what is, in reality, a very practical family EV with superb fast-charging and plentiful room in the rear. Whoever does is in for a lot of fun.

But the really good news for all of us is that if you don’t find the race-ready look of the 5 N quite to your taste but do like the sound of that “e-Shift” tech, now that the hard yards of development and testing have been done on the 5 N, you can expect to see it ported over in some form or other not only to future N and vanilla Hyundais, but group sister brands Kia and Genesis.

If that happens, I really might have to start reassessing my view on EVs pretending to be what Johnson still reflexively calls “real cars.”