CAR OF THE YEAR 2023
Several Hyundai N engineers tell me they were reluctant to join the Ioniq 5 N project. They’re petrolheads. Mind you that makes them just the right people to do it. Their i20N and i30N models are prime examples of how a great manual petrol car feels. Analog and engaging. But the N people’s petrol cars show a prominent digital forward orientation too, giving you endless configurability of their electronic functions: ESP, traction control, e-diff, damping, throttle map, sound enhancement.
So these same engineers set out to make the Ioniq 5 N feel like a lairy petrol car, but then they became converts to what electrification could do. They took advantage of an EV’s digital domains to give you a vast extra set of adjustable parameters. It’s both car as car, and car as game. Right then, let’s play.
> SELECT LEVEL: LEVEL 1
> SELECT COURSE: CITY
Seoul is a thoroughly modern megacity. Forests of apartment blocks stretching for miles, suburbs and centre alike riven by eight-lane highways, and bridges crisscrossing the archipelago. In between, downtown is all narrow alleyways thronged with people walking from noodle bar to coffee shop. Certainly the traffic, when not jammed solid, is pretty caffeinated. It’s Milanese levels of nip and tuck.
So an EV, even this super fast one, is just the thing. It’s responsive, urgent when it needs to be and doesn’t take any learning. Just leave it in the
