The knock against electric performance cars has always been the same: crushingly fast, emotionally flat. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N was built by people who took that criticism personally, and the result is the first EV that made me laugh out loud on a back road.
It makes 641 horsepower in its peak boost mode, which is a lot, but the number is not why it works. It works because Hyundai’s engineers added things no efficiency-obsessed EV would ever include.
The clever theatre
Chief among them is a simulated eight-speed gearbox. It is entirely artificial — there are no gears — yet the way it holds a fake ratio, bumps against a fake limiter and thumps through fake shifts gives your brain something to work with.
Paired with a piped-in engine sound that you can genuinely modulate with the throttle, the whole experience tricks you into driving it like a combustion car. And that trick is the point.
It is the first electric car that rewards being driven badly on purpose.
— From the test notes
Does the gimmick hold up?
After a full day I stopped thinking of it as a gimmick. The fake gearbox changes how you attack a corner, giving you a rhythm and a reason to use your hands.
The Ioniq 5 N is heavy, and it will empty its battery in a hurry if you enjoy yourself. But it has done the one thing that mattered: it has made an electric car feel alive.