The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is a game-changing electric vehicle that has influenced the entire industry with its handling, performance, and simulated gasoline powertrain. It's a joy to drive, with its blend of power, control, and sounds designed to make you forget it's electric.
Hyundai applied what it learned from the Ioniq 5 N to the Ioniq 6 N, which borrows its battery and motors but mounts them in a lower-slung, lighter sedan body. You might expect this to make it an even more rewarding driver's car, but a video by Driven+ raises some interesting points.
Both cars have the same dual-motor powertrain that provides 641 horsepower and 567 lb-ft of torque. Because the sedan is slightly lighter, it shaves two tenths off the 0-60 mph acceleration time, bringing it to 3.4 seconds. Its lower center of gravity should improve its cornering capability, but things are more complicated than that.
View Price on AmazonSam Maher-Loughnan, a professional racing driver, pushed both cars to and beyond their limits on track in the Driven+ video. He posted a quicker time in the Ioniq 6 N, but achieving its advantage of less than three-tenths of a second required considerably more effort.
Sam explains that it wasn't hard to get the Ioniq 5 N to achieve its lap time. However, getting the Ioniq 6 N to match its performance proved difficult due to what he described as "knife-edge" handling. Getting the sedan to exploit its weight and chassis advantage over the Ioniq 5 N seems to take a lot of courage.
Some of the difference will come from the Ioniq 6 N's lower body, shorter wheelbase, suspension setup, and different tires. But its behavior also seems deliberate, coming from retuned software that uses torque distribution and stability control to affect how readily it rotates and responds as the driver comes off the brakes and gets back on the power.
In other words, the 6 N's apparent nervousness that Sam describes may be intentional. Hyundai appears to have tuned it to feel sharper and more demanding than the more forgiving 5 N. This gives the sedan a higher performance ceiling, but makes the driver work harder to reach it. Driving enthusiasts might appreciate this character and find it rewarding to extract all the performance it can offer around a track.
This shows that Hyundai isn't afraid to tweak the N formula so that it feels different based on the car's body style. Each car has its own distinctive role, and the Ioniq 6 N is the one with the raucous handling that rewards a brave driver willing to push the limits of handling, while the Ioniq 5 N serves up its performance without making you work for it as hard. Different software tuning plays a large part in giving them their distinct characters.
Source: insideevs.com
