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

That’s till the introduction of the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, a totally electrical SUV with a set of frivolous options and efficiency upgrades that make it behave and sound identical 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 mould, and it scratched an itch I by no means knew I had, thanks partly to 2 ridiculously foolish options: “N e-shift” and “N Lively 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. 

Quick-forward to this 12 months, and Hyundai’s specialised N division, which focuses on enhancing the efficiency and dealing with of a handful of choose Hyundai autos, reworked all the car. 

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

Whereas the Ioniq 5 N is constructed on Hyundai’s Electrical International Modular Platform, that is the primary car to get Hyundai’s fourth-generation 84kWh battery pack. The chassis, cooling system, and motors had been utterly overhauled to tackle a lot energy and torque, and permit clients to go from a observe to day by day driver, with out destroying the automobile or its parts.

Brakes, suspension, tires, and different components on client vehicles have a tendency to interrupt down a lot quicker once they’re pushed at their restrict on the observe, and Hyundai needed 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 typically a lot heavier and generate extra torque, energy, and warmth when pushed laborious. For observe efficiency, the engineers additionally needed to guarantee that the Ioniq 5 N might be charged shortly since most of the track-focused options require a selected state of cost to entry. Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 N can go from 10 to 80 % on a DC Quick Charger (225kW) in simply 18 minutes.

As a result of 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 so 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 increase of energy and torque, launch management, race modes, and specialised battery conditioning for numerous modes to make sure that you’re getting all the ability you’ll be able to 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’ll be able to toggle these on and off, however there are lots of circumstances that should be met to make them work, and it’s not precisely straightforward to determine. 

Moreover, the opposite trade-off is that you just get diminished 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? Pretend inside 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 hooked up to horseless carriages) and piping in audio because the creation of the auto. A automobile is a fancy dress, and within the ICE period that costume got here with the bodily sensation of shifts and raucous engine sounds to match. It signaled, in large clouds of fossil gas fumes, that you’ve 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 you could management with two paddles on the steering wheel. Once 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 Lively 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, inside combustion engine; Supersonic, which seems like a robotic model of a fighter jet; and Evolution, which is form of a boosted EV sound. 

These had been large dangers for Hyundai to take, in accordance with Andre Ravinowich, senior supervisor of product planning at Hyundai. Even when 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.

After I put the Ioniq 5 N into the N e-Shift and Lively 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 provided by the electrical motors, I couldn’t cease grinning. 

It’s identical to just a little child making automobile noises as they push a Scorching 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 children 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 interior combustion engine expertise and figuring out I wasn’t including a drop of carbon to the ambiance.

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