The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is a very, very good car. It also happens to be electric. And while it’s no lightweight, at about 4,800 pounds, it’s also not nearly as heavy as we would have initially thought. Somehow, the car that Hyundai delivered is legitimately the most fun-to-drive EV that we’ve ever experienced. It’s also far more track-capable than you would expect given that it’s an electric Hyundai. Just how capable is it, though? One YouTuber recently took an Ioniq 5 N to the Nurburgring to find that out.
With up to 641 horsepower and an official 0-to-60 mph time of 3.25 seconds, it’s certainly got plenty of power for the Nurburgring. The bigger concern is whether or not it has enough range to really be driven hard on such a long track, as well as how well the cooling system is at keeping battery temperatures under control. As it turns out, neither ended up being an issue at all, allowing the driver to continually fly by other slower drivers on the track.
A big part of that is due to the Ioniq 5 N’s engineering legitimately being that good, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that the driver is Misha Charoudin, a YouTuber who more or less drives cars around the Nurburgring for a living. So the man definitely knows the track, as well as a thing or two about driving in traffic.
That traffic ended up slowing him down on the second lap, so if he’d had the Nurburgring to himself, he probably would have used a little more electricity. Still, by the end of both laps, the Ioniq 5 N still had 42 percent of its battery left, suggesting it probably could have handled a third lap before needing to charge. And if it’s good for three laps of the Nurburgring, you can pretty safely assume it’s more than capable of dominating your local track day. At least as long as there’s a charger at the track.
