Hyundai Ioniq 5 N assessment: pretend shifting, actual enjoyable

Spend any time round dyed-in-the-wool automotive lovers, and also you’ll undoubtedly hear how “boring” electrical automobiles are. The widespread criticism is that they lack a bodily engine “really feel” or an audible sound while you romp on the accelerator. 

That is till the introduction of the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, a completely electrical SUV with a collection of frivolous options and efficiency upgrades that make it behave and sound similar to a dinosaur juice-burning sizzling hatch, one which brings a giggle of pleasure each time you drive it. 

For the holdouts, the Ioniq 5 N is simply the factor to interrupt the mildew, and it scratched an itch I by no means knew I had, thanks partly to 2 ridiculously foolish options: “N e-shift” and “N Active Sound Plus.” When mixed, these lend themselves to the pure pleasure that the Ioniq 5 N brings to the desk. 

When it debuted in 2021, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 was lauded for its distinctive, space-age appears, vehicle-to-load functionality, 800-volt fast-charging underpinnings, and distinctive tackle an electrical SUV. 

Fast-forward to this 12 months, and Hyundai’s specialised N division, which focuses on bettering the efficiency and dealing with of a handful of choose Hyundai automobiles, reworked all the automobile. 

First, the Ioniq 5 N will get as a lot as 641 horsepower and 545 lb-ft of torque, which is almost triple the horses and double the torque that the usual Ioniq 5 will get.

While the Ioniq 5 N is constructed on Hyundai’s Electric Global Modular Platform, that is the primary automobile to get Hyundai’s fourth-generation 84kWh battery pack. The chassis, cooling system, and motors have been fully overhauled to tackle a lot energy and torque, and permit prospects to go from a observe to day by day driver, with out destroying the automobile or its elements.

Brakes, suspension, tires, and different elements on shopper automobiles have a tendency to interrupt down a lot quicker once they’re pushed at their restrict on the observe, and Hyundai wished to make sure that the Ioniq 5 N might deal with the extremes with minimal degradation. 

That’s no small feat as a result of electrical powertrains are usually a lot heavier and generate extra torque, energy, and warmth when pushed onerous. For observe efficiency, the engineers additionally needed to ensure that the Ioniq 5 N might be charged rapidly since most of the track-focused options require a particular state of cost to entry. Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 N can go from 10 to 80 p.c on a DC Fast Charger (225kW) in simply 18 minutes.

Because the engineers juiced the efficiency, additionally they needed to stiffen the chassis, suspension, steering rack, and physique panels to deal with the added G-forces. Hyundai additionally changed the usual brakes with high-performance variations and added wheel vents to maintain them cooler. And they reworked the regenerative braking system so there’s much less brake fade as issues warmth up. 

The N group additionally added drift options, a button on the steering wheel that provides a 10-second enhance of energy and torque, launch management, race modes, and specialised battery conditioning for varied modes to make sure that you’re getting all the facility you may from the battery and motors.

Admittedly, I didn’t get an opportunity to strive these options, as a result of I’m a accountable human, and I solely drove the Ioniq 5 N on public roads and never on a closed observe. After some digging by a LOT of auto settings, you may toggle these on and off, however there are loads of situations that must be met to make them work, and it’s not precisely simple to determine. 

Additionally, the opposite trade-off is that you just get lowered vary in comparison with the longest-range Ioniq 5, which will get an EPA-rated vary of 303 miles. The N model will get simply 221 miles of EPA-rated vary. 

So what else makes this automobile stand out? Fake inner combustion engine sounds and shifts. 

Automotive fakery isn’t new. Automakers have been tweaking appears (pretend vents, prolonged wheel arches that don’t do something, even horse heads connected to horseless carriages) and piping in audio for the reason that creation of the auto. A automobile is a dressing up, and within the ICE period that costume got here with the bodily sensation of shifts and raucous engine sounds to match. It signaled, in huge clouds of fossil gasoline fumes, that you’ve got arrived, and makes individuals take a look at you and marvel, “Who’s that particular person revving to redline and rev-matching shifts?” 

The N e-shift makes use of the motor’s torque output to simulate shifts which you could management with two paddles on the steering wheel. When you pull the paddles to shift up or down, you’re feeling the automobile simulate a shift, pop and gurgle on downshift, rev-match and turbo spin on upshift, and also you get the head-bob as a bonus.

N Active Sound Plus makes use of audio system contained in the automobile and out, to pipe three completely different sound choices into the world: Ignition, which seems like a raucous, blipping, redline-limited, inner combustion engine; Supersonic, which seems like a robotic model of a fighter jet; and Evolution, which is sort of a boosted EV sound. 

These have been huge dangers for Hyundai to take, in response to Andre Ravinowich, senior supervisor of product planning at Hyundai. Even if the shifts and sound are pretend, he says “it’s bringing that sense of connection to driving and engagement to EVs […] it’s simply again to what makes driving enjoyable.” Hyundai’s N group noticed it as a method to “develop a persona of a efficiency EV,” Ravinowich notes.

When I put the Ioniq 5 N into the N e-Shift and Active Sound mode and chosen Ignition, the sound and the pretend shifts introduced an amazing smile to my face. Paired with the seemingly limitless energy and torque supplied by the electrical motors, I couldn’t cease grinning. 

It’s similar to slightly child making automobile noises as they push a Hot Wheels automobile round a observe, however mixed with the driving expertise within the Ioniq 5 N, it simply faucets right into a pure fanatic pleasure. Even youngsters round my neighborhood stopped and regarded once I began the Ioniq 5 N up with the sound administration turned on. They’d pull out their telephones to take photographs and movies as I drove off, fortunately faking the inner combustion engine expertise and realizing I wasn’t including a drop of carbon to the environment.

The Ioniq 5 N simply is perhaps the efficiency EV that can change self-described “auto fanatic” minds in regards to the electrical transition. It’s that good.