Holy @$%^! The 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N Is the Quickest SUV We’ve Ever Tested

It’s official: The 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, the new hot-rod version of Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 electric SUV, is the quickest SUV MotorTrend has ever put through its instrumented testing. Not the quickest electric SUV, or the quickest SUV from a non-exotic brand, or the quickest SUV with a snazzy blue paint job, but the quickest SUV. End of sentence.

We know that won’t go down well with some people. We don’t mean the quickest-ever part but rather the SUV part. When we named the regular 5 as our 2023 SUV of the Year, we stirred up controversy: Is the Ioniq 5 really an SUV or just an overgrown hatchback? We litigated that at SUVOTY, where the Ioniq 5 did all of the SUV things as well as or better than the other SUVs (usually better than, hence the win). We’re good with the label.

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Faster Than Lambo and Porsche

We knew the Ioniq 5 N would be quick, what with 601 hp, 568 lb-ft of torque, and a 10-second boost to 641 hp. For those keeping track, that’s up from 320 hp and 446 lb-ft in the standard dual-motor Ioniq 5. Nor is that the only change to the first electric vehicle in Hyundai’s high-performance N lineup; Hyundai also gives it a modified version of the front suspension from the Genesis GV60, strengthens the body with additional welds and adhesive, and beefs up the suspension, brakes and thermal-control systems for the battery and powertrain.

Hyundai predicted a 0–60 time of 3.25 seconds. We thought it would be closer to 3.1 seconds. We were both wrong: The 5 N jetted to 60 in 2.8 seconds and flashed through the quarter mile in 11 seconds flat with a 124.9-mph trap speed. That makes it quicker than the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT coupe (2.9 seconds 0–60, 11.2 seconds at 121.5 mph in the quarter), Lamborghini Urus Performante (3.0, 11.3 at 121.3), and Mercedes-AMG EQE SUV (3.1, 11.5 at 117.0), previously the top 1-2-3 SUVs in our testing.

And if you don’t buy the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is an SUV and insist that it’s just a large hatchback, it’s still flying in rarified air. The 5 N just about matches the 0–60 time of the McLaren 765LT, is dead-on with the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and beats the McLaren Senna and Audi RS E-Tron GT. To be fair, all were slightly faster than the Hyundai in the quarter mile, which is tricky for electric vehicles as they tend to lose power at higher speeds. (The RS E-Tron GT has a two-speed transmission instead of the typical EV direct-drive setup, which helps.) So whether you consider the 5 an SUV or not, can we not agree this is pretty impressive company, particularly for a $68,685 family-friendly four-door?

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More Than Just a One-Trick Po-N-y 

Acceleration wasn’t the Ioniq 5 N’s only skill. Our braking tests showed off the improvements the N division made to the binders: The Ioniq 5 N stopped from 60 mph in 102 feet, 20 feet shorter than the best performance we saw from a regular 5 and an impressive number for a vehicle that weighs two-and-a-half tons. Brake pedal feel wasn’t the best; it's a bit soft and squishy at the top of its travel, and our panic stops kept the antilock system busy. Still, the 5 N stayed arrow-straight right through the full cessation of forward motion. 

We were most curious about how the 5 N would do in our handling tests. As you know from our earlier drives, the 5 N has a plethora of settings and modes, including the ability to manually vary the torque from front to rear and a “drift mode” that, in our experience, doesn’t help the 5 N drift.

In preparation for testing, we spent a good five minutes picking through screens, which is five minutes too long. In most cars we simply pick the sportiest mode and turn off ESC and, in the immortal words of Jackie Gleason, away we go. In the 5 N, we eventually settled on putting everything in Sport Plus save stability control, which we turned off along with the fake-engine-noisemaker. We switched on N-Race mode, which, if we interpreted the owner’s manual correctly, sets up the powertrain for best-possible track power. Amazingly, we got all the settings where we wanted them before our test team died of old age.

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Chassis Performance to Match 

We must have chosen our settings wisely, because the 5 N put in a solid performance, chalking up 0.96 g of lateral acceleration and circling our figure-eight handling course in 24.1 seconds at an average of 0.82 g. The Hyundai wasn’t as fast through the course as the Cayenne or the Urus, but it matched the EQE. We could feel the all-wheel-drive system hard at work beneath us, but the steering required almost no extraneous input, with the 5 N tracking beautifully.

Although the N Drift mode works, drifting the Ioniq 5 N the old-fashioned way is easy. We could easily pull off short drifts or long ones, controlling the angle with a single hand on the steering wheel. The Ioniq 5 may be a font of electronic ingenuity, but the underlying chassis needs no assistance. 

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Time-Limited Fun

If only it had a bigger battery so the fun could go on and on and on! The 5 N’s EPA range is 221 miles, and the N division set up the battery and powertrain for a 20-minute track session followed by a 20 minute cooldown. We need not point out that with an internal combustion engine, you can keep going and going until you break it or crash it. EV technology still has its limitations. 

This being a First Test and focused on what the instruments tell us, the article should stop right here, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t tell you how much fun we had driving the Ioniq 5 N. The various settings give it multiple personalities, and there wasn’t a single person on the MT staff who didn’t meet some version of the 5 N they loved or at least respected. We’ll have lots more to say about the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N; for now, we’ll congratulate Hyundai on its new record.