Hyundai Ioniq 5 N review: fake shifting, real fun

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

That is until the introduction of the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, a afloat electrical SUV pinch a suite of frivolous features and capacity upgrades that make it behave and sound conscionable for illustration a dinosaur juice-burning basking hatch, 1 that brings a giggle of joyousness each clip you thrust it. 

For the holdouts, the Ioniq 5 N is conscionable the point to break 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 return connected an electrical SUV. 

Fast-forward to this year, and Hyundai’s specialized N division, which focuses connected improving the capacity 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 double 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 first conveyance to get Hyundai’s fourth-generation 84kWh artillery pack. The chassis, cooling system, and motors were wholly overhauled to return connected truthful overmuch powerfulness and torque, and let customers to spell from a way to regular driver, without destroying the car aliases its components.

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

That’s nary mini feat because electrical powertrains thin to beryllium overmuch heavier and make much torque, power, and power erstwhile pushed hard. For way performance, the engineers besides had to make judge that the Ioniq 5 N could beryllium charged quickly since galore of the track-focused features require 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 pinch 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 power up. 

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

Admittedly, I didn’t get a chance to effort these features, because I’m a responsible human, and I only 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 location are a batch of conditions that person to beryllium met to make them work, and it’s not precisely easy 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 type gets conscionable 221 miles of EPA-rated range. 

Fake Sounds that Make You Giggle

So what other makes this car guidelines out? Fake soul combustion motor sounds and shifts. 

Automotive fakery isn’t new. Automakers person been tweaking looks (fake vents, extended instrumentality arches that don’t do anything, moreover 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 era that costume came pinch the beingness sensation of shifts and raucous motor sounds to match. It signaled, successful large clouds of fossil substance fumes, that you person arrived, and makes group look astatine you and wonder, “Who’s that personification revving to redline and rev-matching shifts?” 

The N e-shift uses the motor’s torque output to simulate shifts that you tin power pinch 2 paddles connected the steering wheel. When you propulsion the paddles to displacement up aliases 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 different sound options into the world: Ignition, which sounds for illustration a raucous, blipping, redline-limited, soul combustion engine; Supersonic, which sounds for illustration a robotic type 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 head of merchandise readying astatine Hyundai. Even if the shifts and sound are fake, he says “it’s bringing that consciousness of relationship to driving and engagement to EVs […] it’s conscionable backmost to what makes driving fun.” Hyundai’s N group saw it arsenic a measurement to “develop a characteristic of a capacity EV,” Ravinowich notes.

When I put the Ioniq 5 N into the N e-Shift and Active Sound mode and selected Ignition, the sound and the clone shifts brought a tremendous grin to my face. Paired pinch the seemingly endless powerfulness and torque offered by the electrical motors, I couldn’t extremity grinning. 

It’s conscionable for illustration a small kid making car noises arsenic they push a Hot Wheels car astir a track, but mixed pinch 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 pinch the sound guidance turned on. They’d propulsion retired their phones to return photos and videos arsenic I drove off, happily faking the soul combustion motor acquisition and knowing I wasn’t adding a driblet of c to the atmosphere.

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