Hyundai Ioniq 5 N review: fake shifting, real fun

Spend immoderate clip astir dyed-in-the-wool automotive enthusiasts, and you’ll undoubtedly perceive however “boring” electrical vehicles are. The communal ailment is that they deficiency a carnal motor “feel” oregon an audible dependable erstwhile you romp connected the accelerator. 

That is until the introduction of the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, a afloat electrical SUV with a suite of frivolous features and show upgrades that marque it behave and dependable conscionable similar a dinosaur juice-burning blistery hatch, 1 that brings a giggle of joyousness each clip you thrust it. 

For the holdouts, the Ioniq 5 N is conscionable the happening to interruption the mold, and it scratched an itch I ne'er knew I had, acknowledgment successful portion to 2 ridiculously silly features: “N e-shift” and “N Active Sound Plus.” When combined, these lend themselves to the axenic joyousness that the Ioniq 5 N brings to the table. 

More Go-Go Juice 

When it debuted successful 2021, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 was lauded for its unique, space-age looks, vehicle-to-load capability, 800-volt fast-charging underpinnings, and unsocial instrumentality connected an electrical SUV. 

Fast-forward to this year, and Hyundai’s specialized N division, which focuses connected improving the show and handling of a fistful of prime Hyundai vehicles, reworked the full vehicle. 

First, the Ioniq 5 N gets arsenic overmuch arsenic 641 horsepower and 545 lb-ft of torque, which is astir triple the horses and treble the torque that the modular Ioniq 5 gets.

While the Ioniq 5 N is built connected Hyundai’s Electric Global Modular Platform, this is the archetypal conveyance to get Hyundai’s fourth-generation 84kWh artillery pack. The chassis, cooling system, and motors were wholly overhauled to instrumentality connected truthful overmuch powerfulness and torque, and let customers to spell from a way to regular driver, without destroying the car oregon its components.

Brakes, suspension, tires, and different parts connected user cars thin to interruption down overmuch faster erstwhile they’re driven astatine their bounds connected the track, and Hyundai wanted to guarantee that the Ioniq 5 N could grip the extremes with minimal degradation. 

That’s nary tiny feat due to the fact that electrical powertrains thin to beryllium overmuch heavier and make much torque, power, and vigor erstwhile pushed hard. For way performance, the engineers besides had to marque definite that the Ioniq 5 N could beryllium charged rapidly since galore of the track-focused features necessitate a circumstantial authorities of complaint to access. Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 N tin spell from 10 to 80 percent connected a DC Fast Charger (225kW) successful conscionable 18 minutes.

Because the engineers juiced the performance, they besides had to stiffen the chassis, suspension, steering rack, and assemblage panels to grip the added G-forces. Hyundai besides replaced the modular brakes with high-performance versions and added instrumentality vents to support them cooler. And they reworked the regenerative braking strategy truthful there’s little brake slice arsenic things vigor up. 

The N radical besides added drift features, a fastener connected the steering instrumentality that adds a 10-second boost of powerfulness and torque, motorboat control, contention modes, and specialized artillery conditioning for assorted modes to guarantee that you’re getting each the powerfulness you tin from the artillery and motors.

Admittedly, I didn’t get a accidental to effort these features, due to the fact that I’m a liable human, and I lone drove the Ioniq 5 N connected nationalist roads and not connected a closed track. After immoderate digging done a LOT of conveyance settings, you tin toggle these connected and off, but determination are a batch of conditions that person to beryllium met to marque them work, and it’s not precisely casual to fig out. 

Additionally, the different trade-off is that you get reduced scope compared to the longest-range Ioniq 5, which gets an EPA-rated scope of 303 miles. The N mentation gets conscionable 221 miles of EPA-rated range. 

Fake Sounds that Make You Giggle

So what other makes this car basal out? Fake interior combustion motor sounds and shifts. 

Automotive fakery isn’t new. Automakers person been tweaking looks (fake vents, extended instrumentality arches that don’t bash anything, adjacent horse heads attached to horseless carriages) and piping successful audio since the advent of the automobile. A car is simply a costume, and successful the ICE epoch that costume came with the carnal sensation of shifts and raucous motor sounds to match. It signaled, successful large clouds of fossil substance fumes, that you person arrived, and makes radical look astatine you and wonder, “Who’s that idiosyncratic revving to redline and rev-matching shifts?” 

The N e-shift uses the motor’s torque output to simulate shifts that you tin power with 2 paddles connected the steering wheel. When you propulsion the paddles to displacement up oregon down, you consciousness the car simulate a shift, popular and gurgle connected downshift, rev-match and turbo rotation connected upshift, and you get the head-bob arsenic a bonus.

N Active Sound Plus uses speakers wrong the car and out, to tube 3 antithetic dependable options into the world: Ignition, which sounds similar a raucous, blipping, redline-limited, interior combustion engine; Supersonic, which sounds similar a robotic mentation of a combatant jet; and Evolution, which is benignant of a boosted EV sound. 

These were large risks for Hyundai to take, according to Andre Ravinowich, elder manager of merchandise readying astatine Hyundai. Even if the shifts and dependable are fake, helium says “it’s bringing that consciousness of transportation to driving and engagement to EVs […] it’s conscionable backmost to what makes driving fun.” Hyundai’s N radical saw it arsenic a mode to “develop a property of a show EV,” Ravinowich notes.

When I enactment the Ioniq 5 N into the N e-Shift and Active Sound mode and selected Ignition, the dependable and the fake shifts brought a tremendous grin to my face. Paired with the seemingly endless powerfulness and torque offered by the electrical motors, I couldn’t halt grinning. 

It’s conscionable similar a small kid making car noises arsenic they propulsion a Hot Wheels car astir a track, but combined with the driving acquisition successful the Ioniq 5 N, it conscionable taps into a axenic enthusiast joy. Even kids astir my vicinity stopped and looked erstwhile I started the Ioniq 5 N up with the dependable absorption turned on. They’d propulsion retired their phones to instrumentality photos and videos arsenic I drove off, happily faking the interior combustion motor acquisition and knowing I wasn’t adding a driblet of c to the atmosphere.

The Ioniq 5 N conscionable mightiness beryllium the show EV that volition alteration self-described “auto enthusiast” minds astir the electrical transition. It’s that good.