Test: Hyundai Ioniq 5 N – Old-fashioned spectacular with pops and fake revs and that’s what it sounds like

Okay, I’ll bite. How is it possible that the electric Hyundai Ioniq 5 N makes so much noise?

Many brands have now succeeded in making an EV good. Making an EV fun, however, is a completely different story. That feeling of connection with technology that cars with a combustion engine sometimes offer is simply not there here, precisely because an EV does exactly what you expect of it in peace and quiet. Developing a sporty electric top model is therefore often quite a struggle. Viewed objectively, a quiet, shock-free and extremely efficient drivetrain is simply better than a jerky noise. Anyone who wants to do something about that is actually deliberately making such a car worse. Yet Hyundai has put a lot of effort into making the Ioniq 5 N a car that explicitly involves you in the drive. The first ingredient is sound. Just like with many other EVs, this comes from the speakers of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, but it doesn’t stop there. Additional speakers have been concealed in the front and rear, causing the front luggage compartment to disappear and creating a certain resonance in addition to sound for bystanders. There are three options for the type of sound. ‘Ignition’ produces the previously described roar that is strongly reminiscent of an i30 N, including the pops when ‘loosening the throttle’. ‘Evolution’ is a futuristic sound that does more justice to the electric drivetrain, although this hissing sound is of course artificial. Finally, there’s ‘Supersonic’, a sound for which the developers, as they say with a barely concealed grin, spent hours watching ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. That’s right: this is the roar of a fighter jet, including a ‘sonic boom’ when switching over.

Wait a minute, switch?

Of course. At the push of a button, the car suddenly behaves as if the drive is provided by an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. This position takes that task very seriously. There is a tachometer (with a completely imaginary ‘redline’ of 7,750 rpm), there is a rev limiter and when switching gears the gear is interrupted very briefly and very abruptly, so that you actually get the feeling that the gearbox is being pushed with brute force. being rammed into the next gear. Between ‘shifts’, the torque delivery also occurs as with a car with a combustion engine. If you completely forget to upshift, the car ‘chops’ into the rev limiter and stops the acceleration until you do so. Everything for that real, natural feeling. And damn: it works.

If everything is set to ‘sporty’ and ‘manual’, the acceleration simply stops at the red area. Also pay attention to the temperatures on the left, for that extra ‘feel’ with the technology.

It works because you buy into it and really think this is a car with a petrol engine?

Actually yes. The entire package of measures has been so well thought out that you would actually swear to drive a car with a petrol engine. The undersigned even had the involuntary urge to slowly warm up the car, which is of course not necessary with this EV. Foreign! Driving in ‘switch mode’ and with noise, the volume of which is adjustable and the exterior speakers can be switched off separately, is not just fun, according to Hyundai’s development boss Tyrone Johnson. It actually increases the involvement that you miss in other EVs, and that also has advantages on a race track.

Tyrone Johnson

But it’s still fake…

You’re right about that, and it does bother you. Is this harking back to the past the future of fun driving? According to Johnson, not necessarily: “In the future we can also work with sound produced by the electric motors themselves. An additional advantage is that it saves money, because then we no longer need those speakers.”

And is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N also fast?

What’s hot! With 650 hp in ‘overboost’, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is even more powerful than its cousin Kia EV6 GT, which already scores well in this segment with 585 hp. Anyone who doesn’t want that switching and the noise can turn it all off and then ‘just’ blast off in peace and quiet and completely smoothly from 0 to 100 in 3.4 seconds. A Tesla-like value, and that’s how it feels. However, at Hyundai they are especially proud of the regeneration. Energy recovery ensures a deceleration of up to 0.6g, so that the car brakes much harder when the throttle is released than a regular Ioniq 5. The battery pack is also larger. It measures 84 kWh gross, but expect this package in a facelifted version of the regular Ioniq 5 in the future.

Striking: the N is currently the only Hyundai Ioniq 5 with a rear window wiper. This will also come to regular versions with the next facelift or update, just like the larger battery pack of the N.

Normally a Hyundai Ioniq 5 is indeed a somewhat distant, very comfortable thing. How did they approach that at the N?

It immediately becomes clear that this is not just a fast (and noisy) Ioniq 5. You don’t even have to drive for this, because the manually adjustable and therefore considerably lower sports seat, in combination with the three-spoke sports steering wheel, immediately gives a sporty feeling. The interior has also been addressed in other places. There is a high center console between the seats, which transforms the spacious interior of the Ioniq 5 into a sporty cockpit. During our first introduction we were able to drive the Ioniq 5 N, but the busy circuit around two highway junctions was too short for an extensive and definitive assessment. However, it turned out to be enough to establish that the Ioniq 5 N also has a completely different character than a regular Ioniq 5, even beyond its drivetrain. The complete front suspension is new, as is the steering and a large part of the rear suspension. In addition, the body has been made stiffer and the N is about twenty millimeters closer to the asphalt. The car responds much more directly to the steering wheel, even at lower speeds, and is clearly stiffer, even in ‘comfort’. Figuring out the different driving modes takes some work, because with all those chassis settings, sounds, whether or not to shift and four different degrees of sportiness, there is a lot to choose from. However, we also use handy ‘presets’ and buttons on the steering wheel, so that with the right preparation you can be in the desired driving position with one movement of the thumb. The 4.71 meter long Ioniq 5 always looks smaller than it is due to its hatchback body, but in N-shape it really drives like a compact and even light hatchback. It responds very immediately to steering input, bites into the asphalt and can also be playful if desired, although the basic setting is safely neutral. With this car, Hyundai is actually creating an EV of a kind that we have not seen before, and also a car that clearly distinguishes itself from a stablemate like the Kia EV6 GT. We are already looking forward to the next, more extensive introduction. And not just because of that sound.