Meet the car that will encourage you to be a hoon. Hyundai’s all-new Ioniq 6 N is literally designed to look for corners that might be fun to drive at speed and entices you to put your foot down. And that’s just one of several groundbreaking, hi-tech features that Hyundai has developed for this radically different kind of sports sedan.
The reason for all the technology is simple – the Ioniq 6 N is all-electric.
When you think of electric cars your first thought probably isn’t driving fast or doing tyre-smoking skids. But Hyundai is using the Ioniq 6 N to shake up the image of electric cars as silent, boring and strictly for avoiding petrol stations.
At the same time, this super-speedy new sedan might also help shake up Hyundai’s image too.
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As Chinese car makers have flooded the Australian market with new, cut-price cars, it has left brands that once dominated the affordable end of the market, such as Hyundai, looking for a new angle to appeal to customers. For Hyundai, that means evolving its image from “cheap and cheerful” to ‘more expensive and more premium’.
How much “more expensive” you might ask, well, the Ioniq 6 N starts at $115,000, plus on-road costs – which is a staggering amount of money for a car with the same badge on the front as an Excel.
But if you divide that amount by the amount of performance and the smiles the Ioniq 6 N can induce, you quickly end up with a very appealing and surprisingly good value hero car.
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The Ioniq 6 N is powered by a pair of electric motors that make 448kW of power and 740Nm of torque in its standard setting. But it also has a special setting, dubbed “N Grin Boost”, that can provide a 10 second burst of 478kW and 770Nm – which is more power and more torque than a Ferrari Amalfi’s twin-turbo V8 manages.
Of course, it’s unlikely anyone will cross-shop the stunning Ferrari Amalfi with an awkward-looking electric sedan, so what about a comparison to the Ioniq 6 N’s more likely competitors?
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Well, the BMW M3 costs $169,100 and produces 353kW/550Nm, so on a dollars per kilowatt equation, that works out at $479 per kW.
By contrast that number is $256/kW for the Ioniq 6 N with its standard power and just $240/kW on boost.
But the truth is, if you ask any true driving enthusiast which car they’d want to drive on a twisty country road or a racetrack and they’d say the BMW … or at least until they drove the Hyundai.
The system that spots twisty corners is called N Road Sense, and asks you to engage the more dynamic ‘N’ driving modes to have more fun.
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Perhaps the two most important pieces of technology are what’s called N e-shift and N Active Sound+ (you may be noticing a theme with the names here). N e-shift is a “virtual gearbox”, with the car actually using a single-speed transmission there are no actual gears to change, but Hyundai has developed this fake system that actually limits the torque and speed until you actually “change gear” via the F1-style paddles on the steering wheel.
While the N Active Sound+ pumps a fake engine noise through the car’s internal and external speakers. If it sounds gimmicky, as a car enthusiast I understand, but you can either leave both systems off and drive in silence or stop being a grump and just enjoy it.
But all this technology would be wasted if the Ioniq 6 N wasn’t actually a good car to drive.
Thankfully for Hyundai, it very much is. In the same way its petrol-powered N models have a fun and playful driving character, so too does this new electric option. It is responsive on the road and track, it even has an N Drift Optimiser setting to help you slide around corners and smoke the tyres if you want.
Will this be enough to win over the performance car fans that love the smell of petrol and the sound of (real) engines?
Maybe not.
But for those who want to embrace technology without having to drive a boring, soulless electric car, then the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N might change the way they think about EVs.
HYUNDAI IONIQ 6 N
PRICE: $115,000 plus on-road costs
POWER: Dual electric motors, 448kW and 740Nm
WARRANTY/SERVICE: Seven years/unlimited km, $1312 capped service price
RANGE: 487km
LUGGAGE: 371 litres
SPARE: Repair kit
