- The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is the brand’s first electric vehicle with the performance-oriented N badge slapped on it.
- The 4,861-pound mid-size crossover offers 641 hp and all-wheel drive at a starting price of $67,475, a big jump from the Ioniq 5’s starting price of $41,800.
- It’s on sale now.
“This vehicle is different from any other electric vehicle ever,” said Till Wartenberg, Hyundai’s vice president of N brand and motorsport.
He wasn’t kidding.
When you think of crossover utility vehicles, even electric crossover utility vehicles, you think of practical, cargo-hauling, comfortable carpoolers. You don’t think of Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Yet there we were, launching down the front straight of Laguna Seca’s recently repaved road course, in line behind three-time Pikes Peak winner Paul Dallenbach, driving about as fast as seemed possible. In a crossover utility vehicle.
“This car needs a little bit of explanation,” Wartenberg said.
Indeed, it does.
The N brand, wherein N stands for Namyang, site of Hyundai’s tech center in Korea, started with the Euro-spec i30 N back in 2017. Other models followed, from other passenger cars to WRC entries. And now, this.
At its very core the Ioniq 5 N rides on the same basic architecture as the Ioniq 5 crossover that Hyundai sells as quickly as it can make them. Kia sells something almost exactly like the Ioniq 5 as the Kia EV6. And Kia did something similar to the Ioniq 5 N with its version of the platform last year when it introduced the EV6 GT.
That introduction took place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where we also drove it around that track’s outside road course, down its drag strip, and all over the Nevada desert. That car had 571 hp, completed the 0-60 mph run in 3.4 seconds, and did surprisingly well around a road course.
Hyundai acknowledges the Kia with polite applause, then launches into its own description of its higher-performance Ioniq 5 N, noting, among other stats, that it gets to 60 mph in 3.25 seconds, for instance.
“Hyundai’s first N brand electric performance vehicle, Ioniq 5 N, elevates benchmarks for electrified performance, racetrack capability, and driver engagement,” Hyundai said.
Specifically, the Ioniq 5 N offers numerous electronic controls calculated to squeeze every ounce of performance out of this seemingly staid suburban transport pod: N Battery Preconditioning, N Race, N Pedal, N Brake Regen that gives up to 0.6 g of slowing force, N Drift Optimizer that keeps you sideways longer, N Torque Distribution, N Launch Control, N Grin Boost, N Active Sound +, N e-shift, and Track SOC.
IONIQ 5 N rolls on Hyundai’s Electrified-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP), then adds the above N motorsport technologies and draws on previous N experiments like the RM20e, RN22e, and N Vision 74.
“These allow Hyundai to maximize its performance capabilities and ensure it meets the three N performance pillars of ‘Corner Rascal,’ ‘Racetrack Capability,’ and ‘Everyday Sportscar.”
As Hyundai’s first electrified N, the Ioniq 5 N has big wheel wells to fill.
Outside, you’ll notice there is an open grille with active aero flaps inside tuned to cooling and aerodynamic balances as they change, a blacked-out H emblem, two-inch wider wheel arches, Pirelli P Zero Elect 275 tires all around, a bigger rear spoiler, forged 21-inch wheels, and even an N-specific triangular high-mount stop lamp.
Inside, it’s similar to the Ioniq 5 with its 12.3-inch center screen and NAV. Beyond that it gets sport bucket seats, N-exclusive center console with its own padding, metal pedals, and seats with meaty side bolsters that sit almost an inch lower and over and inch and a half lower at the hip point.
The body in white is stiffer thanks to an extra 42 spot welds compared to the Ioniq 5 (and Kia EV6) and almost seven feet of structural adhesives holding the various body parts together. The steering gets a quicker ratio and the shocks are N-specific. N Pedal cranks up regenerative braking for an entirely new way of cornering. And then there’s that Drift Optimizer that allows you to maintain your drift longer (this was demonstrated to us but, in the interests of tire preservation among the fleet, not allowed to be tried out by us).
Battery cooling can be optimized for a single qualifying lap or dialed back to “Endurance” mode for sustained lapping. Then, of course, N-Grin is like a push-to-pass, giving you that 641 hp for up to 10 seconds (output is 601 hp otherwise). Wait another 10 seconds and you can push it again.
“Almost every mechanical aspect of this car was worked on,” said Andre Ravinowich, senior manager of product planning strategy for HMNA.
Corners well as the greasy Pirellis slide happily around.
On the track it behaved safely and relatively quickly for a mid-sized crossover. In fact, it might be the best-handling, best-performing mid-sized electric crossover on the market.
We got three lapping sessions around Laguna Seca behind Dallenbach and felt more confident with each one. By the third session we were just sliding the Pirellis all over the track, basically just throwing the car into corners, letting the electronics sort things out, then powering out. It was safe, you really couldn’t screw this up and, in fact, no one on the day many of us were lapping ever went off, that I heard about.
But it raised the question: Why put all this performance in a mid-sized crossover utility vehicle? Why not put it in, say, an Elantra N?
Well, it was in an Elantra N, just not as much of it. And they didn’t let anyone take an Elantra N on Big Laguna. Instead, we took the Elantra N through an autocross course in the paddock. There, once we got over the autocrosser’s understeer, we found the Elantra to be fun. It will see just minor changes for 2024. Its front engine mount was stiffened, the front lower control arm bushing was revised, and the rear shock insulation was changed from rubber to urethane.
But why not put all the electronics from the Ioniq 5 N onto the potentially more sporty and probably more track-worthy Elantra, even if it is called an N in the trim we drove?
Who knows? Hyundai said only that more N models will come. Maybe the market is demanding crossovers, and manufacturers from BMW to Mercedes-Benz to Audi are tightening up their crossovers and making money doing it.
For now, just enjoy this practical performance paddy wagon. You can buy this and tell the spouse it’s a safer SUV with all those electronic helpers. No one has to know it’s more fun, too.
Are performance SUVs where carmakers should be going, or should they pile performance on sedans and coupes? Feel free to comment below.
Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed Ford, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.
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