The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N has been big news, and the hype only continues to grow. Picking up all manner of X-of-the-Y awards from publications across North America, the product brings a lot of promise — but with that, a lot of caveats.
We’ve tested the Ioniq 5 N on track before, but that was under the supervision of an army of Hyundai staffers keen on ensuring all stayed charged and went off without a hitch. What about tracking the new toy away from watchful corporate choreographers, with nobody around to babysit, no pop-up trackside charger to leave the cars at before a shuttle back for cocktails, the whole circus?
Our friends at local publication Autostrada Magazine were hosting a track day at Cayuga (now officially ‘Toronto Motorsports Park’ [albeit two hours from the city]), and invited us out for some time on circuit.
The caveat: Cayuga is nearly 50 kilometres from the nearest DC fast charger.
The strategy: wake up early to make time for a top-up charge in Ancaster, cruise out to the circuit, then leave 1.5 times whatever that trip consumed to limp back afterwards for the recharge that’d get me home.
If anything’s suited to this strategy, of course, it’s this Hyundai-Kia E-GMP EV platform. Running a blistering 800 volts and capable of drawing up to 239 kilowatts’ charge from a 350-kW DC fast charger, the Ioniq 5 is touted to take a 10-80% charge in as few as 18 minutes under optimal conditions. Between range and charge speed, this is one of the best performers in the EV market, albeit at a cost of course. I figured it wisest not to count on charging infrastructure where I was headed, so maximizing this single charge was all the driving I had in mind.
Charging from a 50-kW DC station in Ancaster, the Ioniq held a steady ~48 kW charge rate at ~20ºC until tapering down toward 90-percent charge. Indicated times of 21 and 53 minutes to run from 61 percent to the 80- and 100-percent marks held accurate to within two minutes. Morning cost: $28.01 for 35.18 kWh.
Driving 47 kilometres to the track consumed 10 percent of this full charge, so at least 15 (preferably 20) percent would need to be saved to get back to that same charger before heading home. It turns out that Tesla chargers have been installed at the track, but the unit with a standard J1772 adapter was not cooperating; figures. A wall outlet provided an insignificant trickle (because why not), but barely moved the needle in my time there. Again, just as well: I hadn’t counted on any charging within those 50 km.
Can an EV be an enthusiast car?
The Ioniq 5 N is a curious car to hoon. Normally running 601 horsepower and 546 pound-feet of torque, a press of the video-gamey ‘NGB’ button temporarily boosts output to 641 hp and 568 lb-ft. Acceleration is quoted at 3.4 seconds, but unfortunately for the marketers, 600+ hp isn’t so impressive as it is a basic expectation of any fast or ‘premium’ EV these days. A performance EV needs to deliver on engagement and agility: traits the i5N answers in different ways, albeit seldom in the same breath.
On engagement, the Ioniq 5 N made headlines for pioneering an impressively well-modelled simulated transmission. By mapping motor power to a series of simulated torque curves, the i5N lets drivers choose to paddle-‘shift’ up and down — and with sound pumped in to match. A 1.6-sounding brrt can be heard rumbling from the rear, and an external speaker can also project these sounds out behind for the amusement of onlookers. The ‘rev-limiter’ lurches, the ‘shifts,’ the whole bit — it’s all remarkably well executed, and far more engaging than perhaps any other mass-production EV — the 905-horsepower, quarter-million-dollar Lotus Eletre R included.
A breadth of drive, sound, volume, and other such options afford a wide degree of customization too. This is important, for the Ioniq 5 N is taking on a biggie: this is arguably the first EV to earnestly address the enthusiast crowd and its vocal but varied needs. By spreading the car’s range across several configurable characters, Hyundai has impressively answered a great many tastes in one package. However you feel about the concept of a performance EV, big credit is due here.
There’s more too: front-rear torque bias settings, a drift-mode button for simulated clutch kicks, battery-program settings for instant-output drag racing versus mediation for qualifying sprints or metering for longer-running lapping. There’s a lot of car in here.
But then, there’s a lot of car in here: a full 4,800 pounds (2,200 kilograms) of car, in fact. An 84-kWh battery ensures some range, but slings a lot of mass between the wheels. The general lack of moving mechanical components, meanwhile, leaves for rather little vibration
There’s more still: Hyundai has tricked the car-brained among us into thinking that the Ioniq 5 looks like a little hot hatch by exploiting the wheels-anywhere flexibility of the skateboard battery platform. Corner-positioned wheels with minimal overhangs have historically cued small-bodied, cabin-maximizing cars like the Golf or Pony. By this placement and the scaling-up to 21-inch wheels to fit the scaled-up crossover profile, the proportions tickle the subconscious into seeing a compact hatch on 17s, not a large crossover on 21s.
This strategic upscaling doesn’t just affect mass, but just as importantly, the wheelbase. At a full three metres, the Ioniq 5 N’s axles are spread more than two feet farther apart than the original Pony’s, +40 centimetres over the Kona N, and +28 cm on the Elantra N. This span aids high-speed stability, yes — but it eliminates the giddily responsive short-wheelbase turn-in and generally snappy go-kart handling that’s meant to make compacts and sports cars so exciting.
On its own, this could be fine; unfortunately, it further steadies an already-smooth drive. Driver feedback is rather limited, with electronic suspension smoothing the rebounds before you can feel them. A stiffened steering linkage hypothetically means more direct feedback to the hands, but there still isn’t much to read there. EV road-noise sound deadening, meanwhile, means no auditory feedback from the tires, so you can’t listen for understeer’s telltale chirps. An overall stiffened structure reduces flex and aids perception of body pitch and roll, but there’s still an overall softness about it that’s tricky to read.
Granted, such reading of the road is only so necessary. The Ioniq 5 N is properly modern-clever at pace, vectoring torque to rotate and braking individual wheels to noticeably tug it in toward apices — not unlike some of the sharper German sports cars.
Tracking an electric sports car crossover
Driven on the road, the 84-kWh battery in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is hypothetically good for 356 kilometres in peak conditions, with NRCan energy consumption rated at 24.9 kWh/100 km city, 29.2 highway, and 26.7 combined. Those are tall to begin with, that combined figure alone some 40 percent thirstier than the standard Ioniq 5. You can set battery management for unmitigated drag-strip bursts, mildly tempered circuit sprints, or meted lapping endurance (as in this case); regardless, driven full-foot on track, nobody will expect anything close to those street figures. Hard acceleration sucks a lot through any powertrain, but especially so in a hefty 2,200-kilo (4,800-pound) crossover.
Beyond power too, EVs’ weight also carries incidental costs in increased tire wear. Cayuga’s coarse surface is notoriously nasty to tires even under lighter cars, so in addition to managing efficiency, it was also important to play sympathetically to that. I wanted to return a car with tires, just as any owner out for a casual day will prefer not to have to eat the cost of four 21-inch P-Zeros on a track-tossed stomach.
Also important to note is that I’m not in the habit of absolutely burying it along the front straight. We already know that EVs accelerate in a straight line, big whoop; it’s an unsophisticated party trick with today’s seemingly limitless electric torque, so I don’t much care. There’s far more excitement through the technical back bits of the circuit, so I typically jam up to modest speed and cruise or regen through the straight into turn one, saving my juice (or tires and brakes) for the stimulating stuff. As is likely obvious then, I did not use the ‘N Grin Boost’ button on-circuit. I am an adult, not a competitive Mario-Kart gamer.
The rest of the circuit was run with proper vigour, making a point to feel out weight transfer and right-pedal vectoring, and to prod for any thermal objections that might knock the car down into a reduced-power mode. Each session was bookended by two warm-up and cool-down laps as a courtesy to battery, tires, and brakes.
Driven in this way down to my charger-range limit of 15 percent charge, the Ioniq 5 N delivered two short lapping sessions of 14 and 16 minutes with driver-side ventilation (sans aircon) activated in ambient temperatures of 22 and 24 degrees, respectively. This totalled 59 km including warming/cooling, or 19 laps (11 hot) of the three-kilometre circuit.
Indicated energy consumption between these two sessions and the 50-km drive to the circuit after charging registered 58.5 kWh/100 km, or just over twice the regular combined figure. This averages out to ~2.5 percent consumption per minute on track.
Indicated battery temperatures never reached 40ºC, meaning that the 5 N’s uprated cooling configuration proved up to the task and kept the even under aggressive discharge and heavy handling-circuit regeneration.
That regeneration is an important factor in having milked as much driving time as I managed. Rotors span 400 and 360 mm, but the Ioniq 5 N’s motors are good for a touted 0.6 Gs’ deceleration — helpful as a sort of engine braking and as fade aversion, sure, but far more important as it enables the i5N’s battery to claw back that much more kinetic energy before wheel brakes scrub it to waste.
Limping back at 20ºC without climate or music, I was able to stretch down to ~21 kWh/100 km and pulled up to the charger with a comfortable three percent charge to spare. Evening 26-degree charging speeds ran much as they had that morning, spanning one hour and 52 minutes. Total cost: $56.53 for 81.51 kWh.
Is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N a track-day car?
Technically, sure; functionally, no. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is absolutely capable of keeping pace with casual Porsche drivers on a tight circuit, not to mention impressing with its ability to pull out of understeer and even encourage oversteer if you so desire.
The purpose of this test is not to harp tired tunes about energy density or range anxiety; that’s already been done plenty. Still, while more than perhaps expected it is still a somewhat disappointing net — not least of all when track time costs as much as it does.
A track day totalling 30 minutes, however — especially at just 11 properly aggressive laps — doesn’t sound a lot, nor is it. This test demonstrated that the Ioniq 5 N can pull up and play, but any enthusiast looking to properly enjoy that sort of play knows they can skip the gearshift simulation and buy a brilliant Elantra N for a fraction of the price.
Perhaps that’s just as well though. Yes, the Ioniq 5 N can do impressively well in its short windows on track. No, that shouldn’t be seen as its purpose.
The Ioniq 5 N is an EV that brings surprising and unprecedented enthusiast excitement to everyday driving. Instead of aiming to maximize drive-until-dead 60-kWh/100-km consumption, it should instead be understood as a usable crossover that can also drop thirsty thrills in momentary surges. The i5N is a blast up highway ramps, a surprisingly tidy weave through twisty back roads, an adaptable and well-intentioned bit of life for a modern appliance-coded commute. To be fun because it offers nuggets of that capacity in the everyday is arguably a more important achievement than once-in-a-moon track exertion anyway.
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