Into the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N

Hello, and welcome to Car and Drivers Into Cars, a podcast from iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio,

brought to you by eBay Motors.

I'm Tony Kiroga, the editor-in-chief of Car and Driver, and I'm joined by my co-host,

former editor-in-chief and current chief brand and content officer Eddie Alterman.

And together, we're Into Cars.

Each episode of this podcast covers a new car that we think is worthy of your attention.

The cars we select may feature a novel design, cutting-edge engineering, or something entirely new.

We'll cover the stories behind the cars, answering the whys and exploring the what's.

To bring you into the experience, we'll drive the things and let you listen in.

And then we'll sit down with the people who actually made the cars to answer our questions about them.

Come along for the ride and you'll hear it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly,

in the way that only car and driver delivers.

This episode of Into Cars focuses on Hyundai's newest electric car, the Ioniq 5N.

Unlike every other electric car we've experienced, the Ioniq 5N is designed to give a gas car experience.

Through several selectable modes, the Ioniq 5 can be set up to act like there's a gas-burning engine under the hood

and an eight-speed dual-clutch doing the shifts.

But of course, it's all fake.

But how well does it pull off the charade?

We're joined today by two car and driver riders who have driven the Hyundai Ioniq 5N during different stages of development.

Senior editor Andrew Krock drove a prototype on a frozen lake in Sweden

and managing editor David Beard drove a development car at the famous Nurburgring racetrack in Germany.

Both are here to help us make sense of this philosophically and technically complicated vehicle.

Welcome to Into Cars, guys. It's good to have you.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Thanks for having us, Tony.

You were just down the hall, so we figured.

So, Andrew, why did Hyundai take you guys out to a frozen lake bed in Sweden?

What was going on there and what did you learn, if anything?

Well, I had a blast, first and foremost.

It was my first job at car and driver, as a matter of fact.

It was March of 2023.

They slept us off as far north as they possibly could.

And we hung out underneath the Aurora Borealis and did some ice track work with a very early version of the Ioniq 5N.

Hyundai was still deep in development on the chassis and some of the fine-tuning portions of the 5N,

but they had some small ancillary systems ready for us to try out, like drift mode and e-shift.

So, they brought us up to the Arctic Circle and basically dropped us on a frozen lake bed to spin around in circles

and have a great time. And believe it or not, we did.

Were you surprised when you learned how much power it had?

I mean, we had the Lamborghini Huracan Storato in this thing has almost as much power as that.

It's got 601 horsepower.

And then when you go into what mode is it?

N-Grin Boost.

It gives you 641?

Well, we didn't get too many accelerations on the ice.

However, we did get some low-down blasting around and obviously electric motors produce torque pretty much instantly all the time.

So, it felt powerful.

I was not terribly surprised by 601.

I believe it. It's about as close as we get to a Korean Hellcat these days.

Power train aside and torque delivery aside, did it feel because this thing does all those internal combustion style tricks?

Did it feel like a Hellcat?

It does. And the way I have experienced a lot of consumers who are kind of trying to dip their toes into the EV space,

a lot of folks are kind of looking for any sort of anchor of familiarity to kind of be like,

oh, well, this reminds me of my gas car.

Therefore, this is not as foreign of an experience as I thought it would be.

And I think a lot of these N-Grin shift stuff and the fake gear settings and everything,

I think a lot of it just does a really good job of reminding you that it is still a car underneath.

Has it changed much from production to prototype?

Frankly, it's only gotten crazier.

I honestly think there's more of an attitude to it in the production version than there was.

So if anything, they found that there was room to get even crazier.

Wow. And Dave Beard, you drove this thing at the ring.

I drove it adjacent to the ring, so close but yet so far. I drove it on the GP circuit there.

But I did not drive the Nordschleife.

Because if you were to drive the Nordschleife, you'd only get two laps in.

Yeah, when we were there, that was their goal was two laps with no fall off in performance at all.

Hyundai tested over 6,000 development miles at the Nurburgring.

Was N-Active sound that is the different modes where it sounds like an internal combustion car?

And was N-E shift active? That's where it shifts like an 8-speed dual clutch.

Did they let you play with those at the track?

These were still pretty early prototype mules and buttons were taped off.

So we couldn't really see what things were doing, but they did let us toggle through a few of the sounds,

the supersonic jet mode, which was pretty synthetic.

But what really blew me back was the 2.0-liter synthetic engine noise that kind of pumps through the cabin.

That really throws you off because it does mimic a gas car pretty well.

They had a button set up where you could turn shift mode on and off.

And the torque interruptions in the motor, it also does a great job simulating a dual clutch transmission.

It kind of warps your mind that you're in a gas car.

Yeah, were you fooled? Did the software fool you?

I was not fooled. I was impressed.

I think that if you put somebody in the vehicle who has not been around vehicles like we are,

you might actually be able to fool them.

Dave, you're a gamer and you like to play video games. I know you like to play racing games.

Yeah.

That's a simulation. This is a simulation.

Now, philosophically, are you okay with an electric car simulating a gas experience?

And same question for you, Andrew.

I'm okay with it. As long as you can turn it off if you want to, right?

Don't force it on me. Give me the option to go back and forth.

But I think we kind of need it. Electric vehicles, yeah, they're quick and everything, but they lack character.

And even adding it indigitably is adding a little bit back to the driving experience of piloting a gas-powered car.

And Andrew, how do you feel about the simulation and being part of the simulation?

I've been part of the simulation my whole life, Tony.

I love it. For pretty much every reason Dave said, number one, it's not hurting anybody.

You can turn it off. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

But the fact that it's there expands its appeal and it's a very, in my opinion,

whether it's probably a lower cost way of getting to expand that appeal.

So I'm all for it. Whatever gets more people interested and excited for electric cars.

Because I know that we had the longest time where we all thought we'd be driving second gen Priuses

and we'd all be doing two miles an hour hanging out with Ed Begley Jr. and having the worst time of our lives.

Don't knock Ed Begley Jr.

But I think we're at a time where the cars can be exciting and they're more exciting than people think.

And whatever gets more eyes on them, I think is in that positive.

You know, you see this a lot whenever there's a technology change.

Some artifacts of the old technology persist into the new one.

To me, and I haven't driven the car yet, but it's little like controlling a vehicle with horse reins.

You know what I mean?

And making horse sounds.

But you know, we're so far into the EV transition anyway, it seems like this is pretty late in coming.

Maybe this is how it's going to be.

I don't know.

I mean, are we that addicted to noise, vibration and harshness?

Maybe we are.

I think I am in a performance car like this.

I want that. I would miss it.

Oh yeah.

I mean, theater is a big reason why people like performance cars.

And I think injecting that in EV may seem a little more counterproductive.

Because it isn't making as much noise as an internal combustion engine would, but I'm all for it.

I should also mention that with an e-shift activated, the car is actually slower accelerating

because you get those interruptions and torque.

So it's not even with that experience active, it's not as quick as your standard EV mode.

And I'm sure it'd be slower on a race track as well.

Yeah, right.

That was the one thing about driving it around the circuit is your shift points and all that's playing in your brain as you're out there running laps.

So I found it better to drive with an e-shift activated on the track.

Just because it was a level of engagement and it gave me reference points where things were happening

versus just dead silent out there.

Oh, that's interesting.

Now, speaking of theater, there's also that drift optimization mode.

Did you use that at all?

They turned that on for us, they gave us a walkthrough of how to do it.

They brought us out to this gigantic couple thousand foot ice skid pad

and we're basically just like engage your inner hoon, go nuts,

see if you can hold the drift with without the mode, see how it works.

And there is a demonstrable difference in how well that thing engages and holds a drift with that mode active.

Yeah, because you would think it'd be kind of hard to modulate a drift the way it is in an ICE car.

Yeah, and I was thinking that too.

So the entire time I'm going around the circle drifting, let's just say better than I normally would.

I was trying to figure out how it was all happening in the background,

but my brain was just having the hardest time wrapping around it because the end result was just such a smooth,

perfect slide that yeah, my mind was blown the whole time.

So the production car has N-Race, which will optimize the battery for a few quick laps

versus staying out on the track for a longer session.

Do you know what mode your car was in?

We were not optimized for longer sessions.

We were dumping more power in because we did four laps at a time

and I don't know how you guys drive on media events,

but I like to drive them pretty hard because we get such short exposure to them.

So I was definitely abusing the brakes and the tires and leaning on it as hard as I could everywhere.

And I came away really impressed with how well they had two in the car.

I mean, they've got a couple of fantastic guys running the program over there with Albert Bierman,

former mastermind for all the M cars and Tyrone Johnson.

He was from Ford.

He did the Fiesta ST and the Focus RS.

Great drift mode cars.

I mean, we should pause for a second to talk about how good these N cars are.

And I don't know if the general public really understands just how amazing something like

Elantra N is and just how good it is to drive,

how much kind of front end authority these cars have.

They really do feel like they're set up by real race guys.

They're just awesome to drive.

Yeah, there are tons of fun.

The chassis works well.

The Veloster N sort of got them to this point and then the Elantra N just took it to the next level.

I mean, it's a fantastic car.

Tons of grip.

I think it's close to a G on the skid pad.

They're incredibly quick and it's affordable.

It's in the low 30,000s.

Oh yeah, just from my brief time hanging out over there with the N team,

they're very enthusiastic about their brand and they want them to be good and they want them to drive well

and provide the very entertaining experience.

They really care about their product and I think that shows with how well these N cars drive.

So Andrew, did you have any reindeer when you were up there?

Wait, reindeer meat? Like eating it?

Yes.

Or did you see reindeer?

For a second in my head, I was like, did he ask if I hit a reindeer while I was out there?

No, no.

Did you have the reindeer chili?

Sadly, everywhere Hyundai took us, they did not offer us any sort of local quadruped fare.

Man, you got the short end of the stick there.

Did I?

Yeah.

I was there once and there was a guy beating on a drum and they were parading a reindeer

around and then like 30 minutes later, we're all eating a reindeer.

So I don't know if that was the same reindeer.

Was it that same reindeer?

I don't know, they never said, but we had the chili, the ribs.

Hopefully it was just theater.

Hopefully it was as real as the Ionic.

Yeah, I hope it was noises.

It's not like ritual sacrifice, apocalypse now.

It's been a long time since I've been one of those press trips.

Let's go drive it.

Let's go.

Here it is in the car and driver garage and it's bigger than you think it's going to be.

Yeah, that's the thing with Ionic ends.

They're always, it's got this beautiful hat shape.

So in your mind, you think 80s hatchback.

Right.

And it's so much bigger than that.

What's been described, the regular Ionix been described as like a Minecraft GTI or Delta

Integrale.

Yeah, exactly.

It has an eight bit feel to it.

You know, I love the design of this and you've got a larger rear spoiler.

This one has matte blue paint.

It's like that light blue golf matte paint.

It's the end color, it's the end color, right?

And it's got the little end on the rockers.

It's got the much larger wheels and tires.

It's got P zeroes on it.

It's got a lot of rubber underneath it too.

21 inches.

Two 75s in the back.

Two 75s in the front.

They're square.

And there's a little bit of extra width in the car to accommodate those.

I got to say though, the hood fit isn't great over those flares.

Do you see that?

It's sort of hanging out over it, but perhaps intentionally.

Because it sort of meets up with the fender that way.

Okay.

And it's got the cool eight bit headlights.

I love those headlights.

Yeah.

But does that reinforce the idea that this is just a robot?

Well, it doesn't have that much of a dead lie look, does it?

It's cool.

It's got radiators for the motors.

It's got radiators for the batteries.

I mean, this is the high performance EV right now.

So, I mean, it's basically, you know, an IONIQ 5 from the exterior with a little bit more

flair.

Yeah.

What do they say?

Even more of a rally car look.

It's the Carlos Sainz version of the IONIQ 5.

Excellent.

Let's get in it.

All right.

Let's get in.

These cool flush door handles.

Oh, the seats.

Oh, it's nice.

My critique of the base IONIQ is that it looks like a work cubicle inside.

You know?

Yes.

It's like made in Grand Rapids.

You're going to be hoteling at this for the next couple of days.

It's got a little business center with a fax machine.

But this thing looks proper.

Yeah.

It's got the center.

It's got the larger center console up here.

Ooh.

Did you hear that?

Yeah, it sounds great.

It's purring the life.

Okay.

What are you walking through now?

So, I'm going to go through the active end sound.

And we can choose our different sound.

So, this is Ignition, which imitates an internal combustion engine.

Evolution, which is the usual sound of an EV that's piped in.

Okay.

And then Supersonic, which is apparently inspired by the movie Top Gun.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's go with Ignition.

All right.

We'll go back to Ignition.

You know, it's a weird thing that all of the sound is happening on the inside.

It is.

You've got this fake exhaust noise, but there's no exhaust on the outside.

Yeah.

It's not for anybody else but us.

It's very eerie.

And then I do love, like, the wheel is...

The steering wheel is gorgeous.

I mean, it almost looks like a BMW steering wheel.

It does.

But it has avoided being as large as modern BMW steering wheels.

And you've got these N shortcut buttons.

You have NGB on the right.

That's the...

What was that?

N-grin boost.

That's how you get your 641 for 10 seconds.

Yeah.

It goes from 601 horsepower to 641.

So, that's your 40 horsepower boost.

For 10 seconds.

That's it.

But there are so many features and options.

And look at this menu here that we're going through.

There's N launch control.

And E-shift, which is the fake eight speed.

And active sound, which is the fake exhaust.

So, moving on, the N drift optimizer.

That's the one that keeps us drifting.

That's the one that Andrew was talking about on the lake that made him a champion drifter.

Only available in rear drive mode.

And ESC is minimized.

Yes, stability control.

And race mode is for track driving.

Yeah.

That one allows you to discharge the batteries if you're only going out for a quick lap time.

Or if you're going out for a long session, that's sprint and endurance.

And you can adjust the torque front and rear.

Okay.

So there's this little slider.

Look at that.

Oh my God.

Let's activate it.

So let's go to E-shift and turn on the eight speed, the virtual eight speed.

Hit activate on the screen.

Okay.

Oh, and now it's a commuter.

Look at that, Eddie.

Oh, it went to a tech.

Fake tech.

Listen to that.

It is a video game.

It totally is a video game.

Such a video game.

Wow, that's wild.

And like you said, it's only playing it for us inside.

It's not playing it outside.

You can't hear it outside.

Wow, that is wild.

I mean, you'll never upset a neighbor.

It's quiet mode all the time.

All the time.

Yeah, and these seats too are much more highly boosted.

Yeah, yeah.

They're not hard to get in and out of.

They're easy to get in and out of.

And there's tons of bull strings.

You've got tons of shoulder support.

Nice wing.

You can wear your stetson in this, baby.

Shall we try it out then?

Yeah, let's try it.

All right.

You know, it's funny, even though if you don't like the idea of all this fake sound,

this is really cool.

The sound is sound, right?

It's really cool.

The fake gearbox is done so convincingly.

You have to be impressed and seduced by it a little, right?

It sounds great.

It feels great.

I did not.

I haven't driven this car until today.

I did not expect it to be this convincing.

I mean, it feels like there's an IC engine underneath you and there feels like there's

an eight speed.

And let's not forget an IC with Lamborghini power.

Exactly.

In a Hyundai.

Now, this thing is a lot more expensive than the base Ionic 5.

It's 68 grand to start.

So over $20,000 more than the base Ionic 5.

But the performance is pretty ridiculous.

It's three seconds to 60.

Oh, my God.

That's super cool.

It feels like the power delivery is not like an EV.

No.

It is absolutely.

This is really wild.

Like an IC car.

Wild.

And you don't have to really feel guilty about, you know, downshifting and keeping it at quote,

unquote, 4,500 RPM all day long.

Right.

All right.

Let's turn off the e-shift for a second and see how it is as a regular EV.

And it's still making the noise because we have the inactive sound on.

But the torque delivery feels much more like an EV, right?

Yeah.

And I think it'll just pull on that one gear forever.

So how does it do it?

I think they just have all the software written so that the electric motor is delivering torque

in the same way that an IC engine would.

Wild.

So it's like software.

It's detuned.

This is so weird.

We've so plugged into the matrix.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

But again, it's like in the earliest days of the car, people would have to walk in front

of cars with flags.

Right.

Exactly.

This is kind of like that.

You know, it's the old technology persists in the new one.

But it's also, I mean, you can do it both ways.

You can play with this as a regular EV or you can play with it as with an eight speed

and a fake four cylinder engine under the hood.

It's truly what makes it like a video game to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if more performance EVs went this route.

I hope they do.

Because as you say, you know, on paper, it really sounds like a gimmick.

But when you get in the car and you experience it, you're like, oh, this is what my car does.

Yeah.

And it gives it a lot of character.

It's a different mode.

It's a cool drive mode that's very concrete and distinct from the regular EV modes.

And it feels authentic.

It feels real.

And why not give me a V12 Lamborghini engine?

Right.

Why are we stopping at Elantra N?

Why give us Elantra N?

Right?

Well, yeah, I know there's a lot of corporate pride, but come on.

But how about like a Colombo V12?

How about Colombo's Peugeot 403?

Oh, good call, man.

Well, now we're in evolution.

I don't like it as much.

This is weird.

It just sounds like an EV that's broken.

It sounds like there's somebody's vacuuming in the other room.

OK, let's get out of this.

Let's go into Supersonic.

OK, this is the jet noise.

Yeah, this is the...

Oh, yeah.

This one sounds like there's a small jet engine a few rooms over.

Like an A320 on takeoff.

But it's a lot quieter.

And these are adjustable for sound as well.

You can crank up the sound on these if it's not long enough.

Too many adjustments.

OK, back in evolution.

There's somebody vacuuming nearby.

Let's go back to ignition.

Yeah, it's the best one.

It is the best one.

Or you can turn it completely off and just listen to the sweet sounds of nothing.

Let's go back.

And then when you use launch control, you can dial in how much grip there is.

You can go from high, medium to low.

Why would you want low?

The stability control system optimizes for...

Like if you try to do it on a slippery surface, it won't introduce as much torque immediately.

And this is all wheel drive, dude.

But that's just how much power this thing has.

Let's go turn e-shift on again.

I think I'd get task overload in this car.

There's a lot going on.

You can lock in a bunch of your settings into the end modes, but still, there's a lot going on.

I wish there was one button just to turn on the 8-speed transmission and the sound.

So the skid pad is just a giant 300-foot radius circle.

And most cars, when you drive around it, the front tires give up first.

That's understeer.

But in this car, the test team came back and was like,

I've never driven a car like that on the skid pad.

It just oversteered.

It just wanted to drift the entire time.

And you can control the drift.

Yes, yeah.

It's all programmable.

It's amazing.

It's all part of the simulation.

That's amazing.

And it's a heavy, heavy car.

It is.

It's almost 5,000 pounds.

I think it's like 48 and change, right?

Yeah.

But at least it's big.

You know?

At least it's spacious.

I've taken a regular IONIQ 5 to Ikea.

And I fit a lot of stuff in the car because it basically has an SUV shape.

It's just a little bit taller.

The hatch, right?

Yeah.

It's like a GTI.

We're in first gear right now just creeping around.

I love that torque interruption.

They could really tune this to drive like any car, I imagine.

They should.

Give me more modes.

Just make it easier to cycle through them.

So now we're in eighth gear.

The engine, while the tachometer is turning over 1,400 RPM, I'm going to floor it.

Yep.

And it just lugs along just like it as if it was an Elantra N in eighth gear.

And this is a much stiffer structure than the regular IONIQ.

There's like 42 additional welding points.

There's almost seven feet of additional structural adhesives.

Making it stiff is really important for the suspension to do its optimal job.

It's even the tachometer.

You can hear sort of the idle bouncing as if it's got a really hot cam in it or something.

I mean, it's a very welcome con, you know?

It is.

It's very true.

Good tasting poison.

The burble!

Did you hear that?

That's wild.

No, this thing is set up pretty damn stiff, too.

It is.

I'm just going to go around our de facto skid pad here.

It's got tons of grip.

Body control is good.

The steering feels terrific.

Getting some mid-corner bumps here.

Nice.

Oh, my God.

I am fooled.

I am completely fooled.

This is really lovely.

I'm telling you, man.

This is really amazing.

Wow.

Way to go, Ann.

All right.

Well done.

I mean, they really know how to tune a car.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

And they know what a car is supposed to feel like.

Yeah.

You want to take a turn, Eddie?

I would.

I can't wait for you to be fooled by this.

Oh, yeah.

You get a little vibration through the pedal.

It's weird, right?

It's all authentic.

It's like, it feels authentic.

It does.

And you can just have it.

You can have it your way, like Burger King.

Dude.

It's nuts.

No lift shift.

Isn't that wild?

Yeah.

You definitely feel it in your inner ear.

But it's so much more fun to accelerate in this

than in a regular EV, even though EVs are brutally quick.

And with those auto downshifts, dude, this is great.

And the brakes are solid.

Yeah.

The brakes are nice.

It's got gigantic brakes.

I think they're 15.7 inch rotors.

But it feels like completely friction breaking,

like no regen.

Right.

I mean, they spent a lot of time.

There were many, many, many prototype drives of this vehicle.

That's right.

Years and years.

That tells you how long the development took.

But it worked.

Yeah.

And I've always been so impressed by what they do in the end shop.

They really take their cars up several notches.

How much have we depleted the battery since we started?

I think we're at like 85% on the left.

So 3%?

Just 3%.

A couple of hard excels.

You know, you can get all the hockey gear and the kids in the back.

And that's something you don't normally get in a performance car.

You get it in a performance SUV.

But there are real trade-offs for an internal combustion performance SUV

because all the masses are high, whereas here they're all low

and centered between the axles.

And it really is like the ultimate big GTI.

Yeah.

It's the ultimate hot hatch.

Yeah.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I can't think of any other hot hatch that delivers this kind of performance.

I think it was 3 seconds to 60, 11-1 in the quarter at 123 miles an hour.

It's just ridiculous the performance.

It's wild.

And it's not boring.

I'm not bored by this car.

How can you be?

That's just so awesome.

Now it's throwing out kinds of warning lights and codes.

Well, you just leap onto traffic so quickly it doesn't know what to do.

Okay.

I'm using the Regent pedals to shift, which I like.

That's a very sort of natural, intuitive experience.

But kudos to Hyundai for doing this first.

Right.

Everybody else has sort of like played at the idea, has discussed it.

I don't know.

Maybe we'll do that.

I think Toyota was playing with the manual transmission, but here it is.

And it works.

And I'm fooled.

So smart.

I'm totally fooled.

And I'm happy to be fooled.

It's like a very much an idealized version of an internal combustion car.

With all the smoothness of an EV, but the sound and the fury of an ICE.

And the driving experience.

Yes.

Now it's kind of the best of both worlds.

Yeah.

You can have both.

All right.

I'd buy this.

So that was way too much fun.

But how did they actually do it?

Good question.

Coming up, we'll chat with Hyundai product planner, Andre Ravinovich, about how they

brought the all new Ionic 5N, the N-Active, and the N-E shift systems to life.

Welcome back to Car and Drivers Into Cars.

Our guest today is Andre Ravinovich.

Andre is a senior product planner in charge of the Hyundai Ionic 5N, and he's agreed

to answer some of our lingering questions.

Welcome to Into Cars, Andre.

Hi, Tony.

Good to be here.

I'm excited.

It's obviously a really exciting car that I'm happy to be a part of, and I'm excited

to talk more about it.

So we've just experienced N-Active sound and N-E shift.

The way these systems fool you into thinking that this electric car has an internal combustion

engine under the hood is so convincing it's leading me into an existential crisis.

Who had the brilliant idea of N-Active sound and N-E shift?

So, you know, in talking to some of the engineers in Korea, Nam Young, right, I think there's

really no benchmark for this car is how they approached it.

And they want to find a way to create a product and create a performance EV model that kind

of allowed that bridge for enthusiasts to get into something that's an EV and become

engaged and happy about driving.

Me personally, for example, a lot of times I saw EVs as not necessarily end of the world,

but not the most engaging things to be a part of, right?

And I think that was the approach for those two features is to be the almost like a key

bridge feature for enthusiasts to be really engaged with EV vehicles.

One of the things about EVs is that they've sort of taken acceleration out of the equation.

And you guys have put it back, you know, with 601 horsepower and the way that that power

is delivered through the kind of fake shift mode, it really feels just staggeringly quick.

But it doesn't have the kind of torque characteristics of a classic EV.

There's a bit of a ramp up to the torque delivery, right?

Yeah.

So every single gear in that kind of simulated N-E shift function has its own torque curve.

So it's a combination, obviously, of kind of simulating that build up you would have

in torque kind of a peak as you get to the top end of the gear and that kind of transitions

to the next gear obviously is a combination between playing around, I guess,

with the parameters of the motor as well as actually the regen.

So the regen system of the car helps to simulate that kind of shift-shock feel.

And the normal car transmission, that transition between one gear and another,

is really could theoretically be really smooth if there wasn't a clutch

or if there wasn't any kind of mechanical componentry to it, right?

You're just shifting torque curves essentially.

And I think that that addition of the combination of playing around, I guess,

with the motor parameters and the regen system bring back that kind of mechanical shift-shock feel

which makes it really engaging to drive.

So it sounds like you could do anything.

So you could do anything from like a Ferrari V12 to an Unmuffled Tau V8 to a Geometro even.

Have you considered programming different cars as an option?

I would pay a lot extra if I had that in my Ionic 5N.

Yeah.

You know what?

That's something that's been commonly asked of us recently.

I think it's something that would be relatively easy to do.

I think we want to start with the sounds that we have in the car now

and we'll have to see what comes in the future.

Like you said, it could be anything and it'd be something that I think personally

would be very exciting for customers to be able to kind of pick and choose

and you can tailor other parameters of the car, not just the sound.

You can tailor the shifting, right?

Instead of simulating an eight-speed dual clutch,

why couldn't you simulate a five-speed manual, right?

And have a longer transition between gears, right?

It doesn't necessarily have to be a very fast DCT.

So yeah, I think that's actually the excitement of what this opportunity brings, right?

I think this to us is just the beginning.

It's a big car.

It's a heavy car, but it's great on the track.

And have you measured lap times with and without an e-shift enabled?

Me personally, I have not.

We did an event at Laguna Seca about a month or so ago

and we had some of our drivers that are actually running Pike's Peak in about a month or so.

They obviously had a lot of track time and drove the car both ways with and without an e-shift.

And I think as you would expect without an e-shift is obviously faster,

but I think the feedback from them was it's actually more engaging to have the an e-shift on.

It also helps you on track because it helps put in perspective where you are on the course

and entry speeds into corners, right?

All the things that you typically would find at a normal gasoline car

that kind of get lost a little bit in EVs, right?

You get into a corner in an EV and you kind of just go off throttle.

Obviously, the regen is going to kick in a little bit,

but you don't have that sense of like, am I going too deep into a corner?

Am I at the right braking point?

I think the shifting kind of gives a sensible way to know where you are.

Right. You don't have to second-guess yourself.

You don't have to predict how the regen is going to break you into a corner.

So I would think that it would give you an extra measure of control and confidence.

Definitely.

You mentioned regen and I said before that regen is part of this an e-shift function,

but the more I talk to some of the engineering guys in Namyang,

I find how incredible amount of thought went into all the details of all the features in this car.

Typically, when you drive an EV, you kind of choose a regen level like 1, 2, 3.

As you're driving Ionix 5N in any shift mode, that level of regen is different depending on what gear you're on.

And that's kind of similar to if you're driving a gasoline car.

If you're in a higher gear versus a lower gear,

you have more engine braking versus less engine braking depending on what vehicle speed and gear you're on.

So that's all played into that kind of adding the realism to this function.

Is there a part of the Ionix 5N of which you're particularly proud that you're like,

yes, we got that through?

I mean, you know, I think the N e-shift is obviously the star feature in many ways.

I know we've been talking a lot about it, but there's a lot to it.

I think one of the things that we spent a lot of focus on is getting that longevity of the car.

So I think one of the challenges with EVs is being able to do, for example,

multiple laps consistently in a race course and be able to have that consistency in speed,

being able to have that consistency in cooling performance and battery performance and motor output.

And I think this is another huge aspect of this car is how much differentiation there is to the 5N versus the regular 5

in focusing on cooling and focusing on track performance and continuity.

Andre, is N e-shift patented? Did you guys patent this?

Or is it open to everyone else in the EV sphere now, which is a great thing?

I hope that's the answer.

That's a good question.

I honestly don't know.

I personally kind of hope that it, you know, as much as I would love to protect it for ourselves,

I kind of hope that it's not.

I think what's exciting about this car and talking to a lot of the team in Namyang is that

they wanted to kind of set, not only a benchmark, but kind of set the starting point, right?

They know that 5N is amazing, but they know it's not perfect.

And I think everybody's excited about what this could bring to EVs in general.

That's exactly how we felt about it.

Immediately, we were like, yes, we're part of the matrix now and we're down with it.

To me, it's so exciting that EVs are so configurable.

Essentially, you can do anything, right?

You can detune the power on this car.

You can shift torque front to rear.

You can simulate a rear-wheel drive car.

Tony, you asked earlier about different sounds, right?

It just blows my mind like how much opportunity there is for the future of what we can do with cars like this.

The mixing board has a lot of knobs on it.

Yeah, definitely.

And I know that the team stiffened this car tremendously versus the regular Ionic 5.

And it does really have a very compliant fluid suspension.

What else did you do to the suspension aside from stiffening the chassis to make it work better?

Yeah, it was actually quite a lot.

There's a significant amount of difference between the regular 5 and the 5N.

Different suspension layout, obviously stiff for dampers.

They're also dynamic dampers, the ability to kind of obviously shift damping characteristic.

The platform itself, the body and white itself, right?

A lot more welding points, a lot more structural adhesives.

Typically, a lot of times you find derivatives like this of another product.

You don't have this level of change.

So we've had a few product planners on the show this season.

Tell us a little bit about your job and what your day-to-day activities are like in product planning.

It's funny, you mentioned day-to-day, right?

And that's what I love about the job.

There is no day-to-day.

I'm responsible for a few products in the Hyundai lineup.

And what's amazing about this type of role is that you have a chance to kind of shape the future of products,

which is essentially the goal of the team,

and shape the future of products not just for what we think, right?

Because if it was up to me, it's the running joke, they would all be brown manual station wagons.

But, you know, obviously we have to shape the products for what we need them to be to be successful in the U.S. market.

We work very closely hand-in-hand with the R&D side, with the engineering teams,

both in Korea, here in the U.S.

We do a lot of, you know, benchmarking and testing and ride and drive evaluations here in the U.S.

As well as with the design team in Korea,

that to me personally is one of my most favorite aspects of the role,

is having a chance to go to Korea and see the models throughout the different phases of development

and have a chance to kind of give the U.S. market voice and input.

A lot of times being the biggest market in the world for certain products,

we have a very strong voice.

We have a chance to kind of truly shape the product for what we want it to be.

And you see that in some of the recent Hyundai launches like Santa Fe, for example.

That was, you know, a big push from the U.S. market to get what we want for the U.S. on that product.

What's next for the N division? Where does it go from here?

I think the team sees this as just a start.

There's a lot of lofty goals for what we want to achieve with Ionic 5N.

Like the NE shift is a great example.

It's something that, you know, honestly could have gotten it wrong a hundred different ways.

It could have been something that could have been seen by a lot of people as just gimmicky, right?

I remember, for example, the first time I saw a CVT vehicle with paddle shifters, I'm like, why?

And this could have been the same thing. It could have been like, why bother?

So I think seeing the possibilities and seeing what we were able to do with this car

and seeing like we were talking before about what else could be out there.

And that kind of opened us. Tony, you mentioned that mixing knobs and a tuning board.

I mean, it just kind of an exciting time, right? To kind of see what's next.

Yeah. I mean, we were skeptical, but then you get in the car and you experience it

and you realize just how entertaining and gratifying it is to drive.

It's the best DCT I've ever driven and it's not even a DCT.

And tomorrow we can make it a six P manual if we wanted to, right?

Right. Exactly.

And just to get back a little bit to this question of N, like are the ambitions to make it a full range option?

Is it going to be like BMW's M division or AMG where every Mercedes or BMW has an AMG variant?

What is the philosophy?

I think for now the philosophy has always been pick the right product that fits with where the market is going next,

where some of the trends are going next.

I guess in this case, you know, Ionic 5 being an SUV type of a product.

I think that kind of fit, you know, the market in some ways.

I don't know if I see it as being something that's across the entire lineup.

I think it's something that it needs to be the right product for it to fit well with the core goals of every end product.

The duality, right? Being kind of an everyday sports car as we like to call it as well as being something

that can be actually track focused and not every product could do that, right?

So I think there's probably some others in our lineup that you could maybe see that would make sense.

But I don't know if every product would be right for this.

Andre, what was your first car?

I originally grew up in Brazil and my grandfather had a few cars, some older, some newer ones.

And we had a Chevrolet station wagon.

It was a 1977 in Brazil called a caravan.

So if you look that up, it kind of looks like an Impala type of a wagon.

And he actually taught me to drive that when I was, I want to say I was seven or eight years old, actually.

You know, in Brazil, like most cars at the time, they're all manual transmission.

And I think by eight or nine, I want to say I was driving it around the streets in the neighborhood by myself, which was.

That's awesome.

Big massive alcohol field.

You know, Brazil has a lot of gasoline and alcohol, like dual fuel cars and kind of a fun car.

Still to this day, I can remember the smells inside that car.

So you had your first car when you were seven.

Yeah.

And I have pictures to prove it.

I have pictures to prove.

Yeah.

If I'd known that when I was seven, I would have moved to Brazil.

Things are a little bit different there.

Yeah.

And then obviously moved, moved here to the U.S. when I was 11.

So obviously couldn't touch cars for a while.

But my true first car here in the U.S. was a Eagle Town Turbo.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

It was a 91 Eagle.

Bought at a great price.

It had its quirks, had its issues.

After a few, let's say challenges we have with the powertrain, you had to keep the air conditioning going.

Otherwise it would stall, which was great for Pennsylvania winters.

The compressor would keep those RPMs just at the right amount so that it wouldn't stall at a red light.

It was an MT, so it was fun.

Cool.

Thanks, Andre.

Thanks for your time.

Thanks for joining us into cars and answering all of our questions.

This was great.

Thanks, Andre.

That was great.

As you can tell, I'm a big enthusiast.

Love talking about products in general.

And I think the 5N is a pretty fantastic car that, like I said, just a start.

I think we're all excited to see where this goes next.

Yeah, keep it going.

Thank you.

That interview was brought to you by eBay Motors.

Visit ebaymotors.com for more.

Car friends, the Hyundai Ioniq 5N shocked and surprised us with its ability to be a great electric vehicle.

But it also mimics a really fun and engaging car with an internal combustion engine.

All of the fake stuff works.

The sound might not be great, but it's the first electric vehicle that can do that.

And I hope that dual nature spreads to more EVs.

Yeah, this thing really does it all.

And I love that dual nature.

I was really skeptical before this episode going in about the fake engine sounds and the fake shift points.

But it really turned me around and convinced me that this is a compelling way to engineer an EV.

For more on the Hyundai Ioniq 5N, visit carandriver.com and be sure to pick up the latest issue of Car and Driver Magazine.

Tune in next week for our Season 1 finale where we go off-roading in the reinvented Toyota Land Cruiser.

Are you locked up?

Are we already stuck in here?

This is quickly going to turn into a lost scenario where we'll find out we've died in this off-road park for the rest of our existence.

Thank you for joining us on Car and Driver's Into Cars.

If you enjoyed the show, join us every week for new episodes.

And don't forget to rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Car and Driver's Into Cars is a production of Car and Driver in iHeart Media's Ruby Studio.

Our show is hosted by Eddie Alterman and myself, Tony Quiroga.

Our executive producer is Matt Romano.

Our EP of post-production is Matt Stillo.

Our supervising producer is Sierra Kaiser.

This show was edited by Sierra Spring.

Special thanks to our location sound recordist Matthew Sisko.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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