The Hyundai Ioniq 6 N Is The Ruler By Which Performance Sedans Should Be Measured

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 N deserves all the accolades

I’ll gladly tell anyone who ever asks that the Ioniq 6 and its new N sibling are tremendous-looking cars. The fastback silhouette that you could argue looks like a Porsche, the pixelated lights at both ends that make it seem like it’s straight out of Cyberpunk 2077, and the fact that it can haul your family and groceries after the track run make it an irresistibly gorgeous machine.

You can read more of my fanboy ramblings on the Ioniq 6 N’s perfect design in my other article, but for now, let’s go over the reasons why it looks the way it does: it’s fast. Everything that the Ioniq 6 N does, it does with speed in mind. Let me tell you about it.

The insanity starts right away

There’s something about making a family sedan into a pavement-punishing machine that makes it an instant hit in the eyes of enthusiasts. The Ioniq 6 N is just that, and yes, it is fully electric. You shouldn’t let that ruin your view of it, because it’s so much more than that. The dual-motor setup churns out an “explosive” 640 horsepower and 770 Nm of torque, or roughly 568 lb-ft, which translates to a frankly absurd 21,000-rpm redline, a 0–62 mph sprint of just 3.2 seconds with N Grin Boost Launch Control engaged, and a 159 mph top speed.

Hyundai also claims it has strengthened the “coercive force of the permanent magnets inside the front and rear motors…by approximately 19.8% to suppress the motor’s heat generation at high speeds and delay the point of power de-rating.” I had to do some dictionary research myself, and from what I gathered, Hyundai made the magnets inside the electric motors harder to “demagnetize,” which helps the motors run cooler under high load. If a magnet’s coercive force is too low, heat can partially demagnetize it, which reduces efficiency and makes the motors run hotter. In other words, it’s a plus for those of us who want to use every single RPM that we paid for.

Of course, it would’ve been easy for Hyundai to make it fast, slap an N badge on it, and call it a day, but they know better. Beyond the motors’ performance figures, the Ioniq 6 N gets a lowered roll center with revised suspension geometry, adaptive damping that adjusts in real time, and a new rear stiff bar tied into a reinforced underbody. All that engineering wizardry means the car can carve through corners with an effortlessness that feels almost unfair to other cars.

The digital goodies that make it extra special

The Ioniq 6 N has yet another controversial feature that has some enthusiasts foaming at the mouth: faux engine sounds and shifts. Hyundai dubs these N Active Sound+, N e-shift, and an N Ambient Shift Light to go along with it. The three sounds, Ignition, Evolution, and Lightspeed, are inspired by motorsports, the N 2025 Vision Gran Turismo, and sci-fi vehicles. They all sound extremely neat, and I’m firmly in the camp of “I don’t care if the sounds are fake, they sound cool and make me happy.” The e-shift manipulates motor torque with motorsport-inspired close gear ratios and ambient lighting changes to act as a shift light. All of these can be adjusted from the central infotainment display, which also houses a myriad of other performance-oriented settings. Let’s look at them, shall we?

To start with, N Drift Optimizer lets you adjust one of three different settings for the optimum drift setup. “Initiation” changes your oversteer by fine-tuning “the responsiveness of drift entry, allowing for a wide range of drift performance from gradual slides to aggressive entries.” “Angle” tweaks the Electronic Stability Control, setting the vehicle’s lean and turn angles during drifting. “Wheel Spin” adjusts the Traction Control System to let you fine-tune how hard you want to punish the rubber. Lastly, Battery Pre-Conditioning gets the cells ready for drag races, sprints, or track driving. You can even adjust the Torque Distribution, see stats from your run with the N Track Manager, or mount a camera for those sick social media clips with the integrated interior camera mount.

Aero galore

Of course, such performance is difficult to harness without proper aero, but thankfully, the N treatment bestows the Ioniq 6 N with every aero trick in the book. There’s a carbon-fiber front splitter, carbon-fiber side skirts, a carbon-fiber rear diffuser, carbon-fiber wheel caps, underbody “turning vanes,” forged wheels, and an absolutely unhinged carbon-fiber rear wing that juts outward from the rear window. Up front, a grille shutter can be opened and closed at will to control airflow through the bumper, while an integrated air curtain in the bumper improves airflow around the bumper and wheels. Even the shuriken-like wheels are optimized for aerodynamics by design.

Final thoughts

All of this is to say that the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N is a tremendous car from a visual and specs-focused standpoint. It looks every bit like a factory race car, and everything installed on it serves the purpose of making it go like hell. There’s nothing extraneous or simply for the purpose of visual effects, making it as focused a car as one could hope for. If the Ioniq 5 N is a template to go by, then the Ioniq 6 N will drive as well as it looks, and we simply can’t wait to get behind the wheel of one.

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