640BHP EV madness! Can the Hyundai IONIQ 6N handle it?

You know when you turn up to a car meet but you work for an electric car channel so actually no one looks twice at your car? Well how the turntables have turned on their tables of turning tables. This is the Hyundai Ioniq 6N. Today we're going driving. I'm so excited. And I reckon this is going to change the game. Hello petrol heads. Oh it's great. That's great. This is a car to be driven. Yes you can use it as a family car if you want to but then over weekend if you want to go and throw it around some country roads be my guest. If you want to take it to a track for the weekend abso-bloomin'-lutely. We have got 226 horsepower on the front motor, 383 horsepower on the rear motor and that equals, can you do the maths? Do the maths quickly. Go go go. Can you do the maths? You got it? 609. 609 horsepower. Yeah. Now this is the button that is your friend because that gives you the 10 second boost and that gives you 650 horsepower when you press it. This thing is stupidly fast. It's got a 0-62 time when you press that button of 3.2 seconds. Now I'm very wary that there's going to be people that are going to put comments going I think you'll find that the Tesla Plaid is actually much faster than that and does much quicker numbers. Yes I'm very aware of that but what the Tesla can't do is corner like a Hyundai. I never thought I would say that sentence but here we are. This thing has 50-50 perfect weight distribution. It's got a lower centre of gravity than the 5N which means you can throw it round corners and it just grips and knows that you want to do it and just knows what you want out of it and it's just blooming brilliant. So this car compared to the 5N has a stiffer body. It's reinforced with more weld points, adhesives and structural upgrades. They've also reworked the brakes. It's got an electronic diff. It's got ZF adaptive dampers. Yes that respond far more quickly than before. So they work with different company for that rather than the 5N. Interesting. The brakes you have the N pedal so there's three selectable levels that you can get more tuck in when you lift off and it gives you max of 0.6g regenerative braking which helps keep the proper brake discs cool while you're on the track. This spoiler isn't to just make the kids think the car looks cool it actually works. So at 155mph it creates 100kg of extra downforce so it's basically the same as having a chubby fella sat in the boot because it makes the car more planted. Especially important is the wind cheating shape because it shapes a bit like an aeroplane wing and you don't want to take off while you're driving. Now other aerodynamic developments makes this look a bit more purposeful than a Tesla. I mean you've got flared wings, a wider stance, lighter wheels and by the way I have done a full walk around of this car so if you want design details go back and watch that because I don't want to do that all over again. As soon as I walked around this car in the studio I just knew that this thing was going to be brilliant because of all the tech and everything that they've put behind it and the amount of work that they've put into this car compared to the the 5N. I mean I think the 5N is still a pretty decent thing but knowing the extra bits that they've put in the 6N and the shape of this car compared to the 5N I just knew and had a feeling that this was going to be stupidly impressive and it really is. I need to get off of these normal 30 mile an hour roads because I'm really disappointed that I can only drive 30 mile an hour right now. Well while I'm doing this I might as well tell you about the range until I can get myself onto a national speed limit road. Right range wise we don't have an official figure yet but at the moment I'm at 77% and it says 175 miles. Now we have to bear in mind that this is predicting what your range is going to be because of how this car has been driven. Now before me there's been another couple of car journos that have been driving this around and they have been ragging it silly. So in theory, this is after my conversation with Hyundai, in theory you should be getting in the high 200s if you're going to use this as a normal family car which you totally can but then if you are it's going to be slightly less. We're calling it smiles per mile. Let's go with that. How many smiles per mile can you get? High 200s it will be if you're driving it like I am right now. But the good thing about Hyundai which is similar to what Kia do as well actually is the menu will show you the most amount of range that you can get out the car and the least amount of range that you can get out the car. So it will be like say it says 175 miles it then might say well if you put it in eco mode you can actually get this amount out of it if you want to so it kind of gives you the nice amount of options. Oh by the way just in case you are used to driving EVs and having a very tight turning circle this one doesn't. It's quite a wide turning circle so bear that in mind if you need to do quick turnarounds. Right allow me to take you through all of the N things of which there are a lot of N things. I mean when you look at the steering wheel we've got two N buttons here we've got an NGB button here so allow me to take you through what's coming. So we have N launch control. So basically that will then use the sensors and the sensors will then tweak the torque to make the perfect sort of slip and grip and make it awesome launch control for your fastest 0-60 time which is 3.2 seconds by the way. You then have N grin boost. Yeah grin boost because it makes you smile. Now this gives you the full amount of horsepower for 10 seconds. It then needs another 10 seconds to kind of recharge itself a bit like a computer game but that's perfect for overtaking. N grin boost. Yes we love that button. Then you also have the N mode here in the menus so you've got N battery. So a bit like when you precondition your car to make sure that it can charge at the optimum speed because the battery's at the right temperature. This sets the battery at the right temperature for track fun. So you kind of activate it and it will make sure that the battery is at the perfect temperature for you to have the most amount of fun on track. Lovely. You've also got the drift optimiser. Sorry the N drift optimiser. Stay with me here because this thing will make it look like you're very good at drifting even if you're not very good at drifting. So you can kind of set your angle and set your wheel spin and then the car will make it happen for you. Very clever. And then you can go along to this. Oh no I missed one. N e-shift activate. Can you hear the engine rumble? Engine. So this then turns these into your gear shift so it makes it feel like you've got an eight-speed gearbox even though you don't. And then you've got the N active sound which is also what you can hear. So it's playing a fake engine noise within the car and also outside the car. I've also been told that while the Hyundai team have taken this on the Nürburgring they took this out as soon as you got it to about 100 mile an hour. He was saying that the engine outside the engine outside sounded incredible. Now obviously we're here in the UK which means we're limited to 70 mile an hour. So probably won't be able to hear it properly. But do you want me to rev it? Then you also have the N track manager. Now this allows you to either go to a track and sort of set your times or create your own track. And then once you've done a few laps you can then race a ghost version of yourself. A bit like what you do in Mario Kart sometimes. And finally you have N torque distribution. Now this allows you to chop and change how you want the car to feel. So if you want it to be a little bit more fun and use the rear end a little bit more you've got 11 levels to move it towards the rear end. Or if you're a bit more hot hatchy move it towards the front. Or just leave it nice and perfectly stable in the middle. Can I quickly point out to you by the way just in case you have noticed and you're worried about this situation here and this situation here. That's not coming. This is just a pre-production car and I have been told that all of the actual IONIQ 6N's will just have normal mirrors. So don't panic. Now we know that you're not all looking for a brand new EV and that's why we've built our very own used EV marketplace at electrifying.com. It is packed with great deals and details like battery warranties so you can buy with confidence. So just scan the QR code on the screen and you can browse while you carry on watching you lucky buggers. Oh god that was wonderful. That was wonderful. Okay I just pulled out of a junction and it just went that's what it just did. Just stuck and wet. It was cracking. That was cracking. This is a very impressive machine. Yeah it's a bit good isn't it. I've gone through phases with the fake engine situation. I didn't mind it in the Kia EV6 GT. I thought it was quite good. The 5N I also liked it. In this I also like it. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Where's that speed limit sign? Come on. Come on. Come on. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's here. That's what I wanted. I just wanted to throw myself back in the seat and just feel it. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to feel that power. I also want to find more corners because I want to throw it around more. It's also a really cracking driving position. It really is. It feels like quite a small car while you're in it and it doesn't feel heavy at all. The steering could be a little bit heavier. I guess you can change that in the menus though can't you? You can change and tweak things as you go along. I don't have to change the gears by the way. It will just do it by itself but I'm kind of enjoying using the flappy paddles. I've missed that feeling of changing gears. I really have. Right if I take it out of this menu and just put it into the normal menu into normal mode. Normal mode. There we go. Switch that off. So now I use the flappy paddles for regen braking so I can flap all the way over and now I've got hold it down for one pedal driving. Lovely stuff and then I can turn it back off again but then when you press that button there you're now using the flappy paddles as gears. The revs as it's going down the gears just sound so nice and occasionally it does little pops back as well which is very cool. Fair play here to Hyundai. Not fair play to me for finding some terrible roads but this is this is a pleasure. It's like it just wants to stick and go and stick and turn. That's what's very impressive about this thing is the ability to corner. It's so impressive. This feels so different to what you'd get in like a very fast Tesla or a very fast BYDC or something like that. It feels very very different. Question is how much is it going to cost? That is the big question. Now we don't have the official pricing and I said to the guy at Hyundai I went I'm guessing around 70 grand and he went no no no no no won't be as much as that but might be slightly more than the 5N. Okay so what does that mean? So the 5N at the moment is around what 65 but it's going to be less than 70. So let's go mid 60s mid to late 60s in the thousands. That's how much this car will cost and in terms of sort of options and things there's not really that much that you can opt for to change the price that much. Do you want to spend mid to late 60s on a car like this or would you rather have like a Porsche Taycan or something like that? I reckon it's still like this. It's quite a weird time to be in isn't it where you're going would I rather have a Porsche or a Hyundai which is just a sentence that me 10 years ago never thought I would say. When I started reviewing cars it would be like well yeah naturally you'd have the Porsche but now Korean cars are just coming along and smashing everything out of the park aren't they? So would you rather have a Hyundai? Depends on how much of a badge snob you are really doesn't it? I'd quite happily have one of these. I mean we all know that the N stands for Nikola so I'm trying to convince the Hyundai team so that they gift me one. Do you reckon that'll work? It's a tricky one this. It's a brilliant machine. It's very well put together. It's an absolute joy to drive when you can drive it to its best ability and that is the issue of living in the UK. As you could have seen from my driving pieces to camera just then was that I was struggling to find the full experience for a long period of time. You need to take this to a track but the big question is is this the car that can convert the petrol heads and I think it can. I think it can. It's a joy. Fair play to Hyundai. It's very impressive but how often can you use it to its best ability? That's the thing. I need to take it to Silverstone. Let me know what you think in the comment section below. How do I get? Who do I talk to to get it to Silverstone? I'm going to have some words. Three, two, yeah!