► Hyundai’s N division has made another electric car
► This one isn’t quite as insane as the Ioniq 5 N…
► … but it should get around a race track quicker
I have endless respect for Hyundai’s N division. It proved to the world that electric cars can be an absolute riot, providing you put a petrolhead at the top of the company and give him the freedom to make cars driving enthusiasts want to buy. If I needed an electric car, I’d head straight to a Hyundai dealership. And now, I’d have more choice. Meet the new Hyundai Ioniq 6 N, revealed today at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is nothing more than an Ioniq 5 N in a flowy frock, though. The Ioniq 6 N is a completely different animal, not least because it’s been designed to go around a track quickly rather than sideways.
It might share the same E-GMP architecture as its smaller sister, but its dampers are different, its spring rates are different, its geometry’s unique, its motors have been improved and it cools much better better, meaning you thrash it harder for longer. Plus, the software controlling all the mechanical bits has been completely re-written.
Scroll down to find out why you’re going to want one when it goes on sale in November 2025.
Give me the headline figures
Maximum power and torque are the same as the Ioniq 5 N. You get 641bhp and 568lb ft (which is ample in my book). But, because Hyundai has improved the magnets inside the motors and upgraded the 6 N’s cooling system, you can access more of that power more often.
Plus, you now don’t need to keep mashing the big red N Grin Boost button on the steering wheel to unlock the car’s maximum potential. Sven Risch, one of Hyundai N’s Senior Engineers, told me Ioniq 5 N drivers aren’t using the function as often as they can on the track because they’re already at cognitive capacity simply managing the playfulness of the chassis.
That was hurting lap times so, in a car so unashamedly designed for the track, the decision was made to dial the extra power into the accelerator. At least in N mode. You still get to pretend you have NOS when you’re pootling the 6 N along in Normal mode.
Top speed is slightly slower at 160mph and, although Hyundai hasn’t yet confirmed the 6 N’s 0–62mph time, I’d be very surprised if it was slower than the 5 N’s 3.4-second time.
Range is pretty good, too. Hyundai’s current estimates put the maximum figure at 291 miles. Granted, that’s 47 miles behind the most efficient version of the standard Ioniq 6 – and it achieves that figure with an 84kWh battery rather the standard car’s 77.4kWh unit. But the N has almost triple the amount of horsepower, so that doesn’t seem like a bad result to me.
It looks… different to the standard car
That’s quite an understatement. Hyundai’s N division has tickled almost every panel on the car – and I don’t really think the images do the tweaks justice. The Ioniq 6 looks mean in the flesh.
The biggest change Hyundai’s N department had to accommodate was how to make the body fit around its wider track and fat new alloys. The solution was a widebody kit. It’s 30mm wider each side, which doesn’t sound like much – but it makes a huge impact.
Once it had figured that out, Hyundai could focus on the 6 N’s aero package. There’s a new front splitter, wider side skirts, a massive rear diffuser and a swan-neck rear wing that looks like it was pinched from a GT3 racer.
Hyundai won’t tell us how much downforce the changes produce, but its engineers did tell me that extras such as the air curtains ahead of the front wheels and the deflectors under the splitter allow the air to pass more cleanly over the body and contribute to the car’s near 300-mile range.
Even the forged 20-inch alloys have been designed with aerodynamics in mind. They have a massive (and immensely kerb-able) lip running around their circumference which pushes some of the air away from the hubs, preventing it from getting minced by the spokes and causing drag.
Hyundai N’s obsession with performance even forced its engineers to drill holes in the spokes of the alloys to shave a few grams off each corner of the car and reduce unsprung weight. That’s dedication, right there.
The cabin has some big changes, too. You get the same N-branded skin for the infotainment system as the Ioniq 5 N, the same racy Alcantara steering wheel and a pair of sublime racing seats. I tried them in the studio and they’re easily as good as any seat from Porsche.
What about the technology?
Again, it’s different. Most of the elements from the Ioniq 5 N remain – torque vectoring, active dampers, an electronic limited-slip differential, an incredibly sophisticated traction control system – but they’ve been adjusted to suit the 6 N brief as a track monster.
Sven Risch told me this new car should be even more predictable at the limits of grip, which should make it even easier to screw fast lap times out of it.
Hyundai hasn’t lost its mad streak, though. In addition to all the grip-biased technology, you get an even more sophisticated version version of the firm’s Drift Mode, which means even someone as ham-fisted as me should be able to skid it about like Daigo Saito.
Where the 5 N’s technology was basically an on/off toggle, the 6 N’s operates like a dimmer switch. It has three sliders that allow you to customise the amount of angle you’d like from your drift, the ease of initiating said drift and – I swear I’m not making this up – the amount of smoke you’d like from the rear tyres. Never change, Hyundai.