Hyundai eyes buyers of traditional European performance brands with new Ioniq 6 N high-performance EV.
Does Hyundai have Europe in its sights with the new Ioniq 6 N high-performance electric sedan?
It’s a resounding yes, according to the head of Hyundai’s Performance Development Tech Unit, Manfred Harrer.
“Yeah, yeah. I believe we are really playing in this league with this product,” the executive told Drive when asked if the new sports sedan would conquest buyers from traditional German performance brands like BMW M and Mercedes-AMG.
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“To be honest, every performance-oriented customer is welcome. It doesn’t matter coming from Tesla or Polestar, or one of the German premium OEMs,” said Harrer.
“It helps us with the brand reputation, our image.”
With all-wheel drive and up to 478kW output available from a pair of electric motors, the Ioniq 6 N features a simulated eight-speed transmission and sports exhaust so as to deliver an immersive and engaging drive experience, despite being a fully electric platform.
The car is claimed to sprint from 0-100km/h in just 3.2 seconds and reach a top speed of around 250km/h, which places the swoopy Korean sedan in a higher performance category than a 310kW, 4.1-second Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 S or 294kW, 3.8-second Audi RS3.
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Was there a specific car that the 6 N was benchmarked against? Yes and no.
Harrer noted a Tesla was used by the development team in terms of understanding some of the electric performance currently in market, but pointed out the 6 N offers a unique proposition to buyers, with many of the car’s engagement features (simulated noise and transmission) not available on other models, and a focus on handling, a key part of the 6 N’s brief.
“It’s not only the performance and acceleration capability,” said Harrer, “to bring the vehicle dynamics to the car, to bring this fun to drive with such software features, this combination, in my eyes, is still very, very unique.”
Harrer, who has previously held roles at Porsche and BMW, feels that the product has the ability to take on the challenge. “And we are there. We have the capability,” he said.
“We have the expertise, we have the passionate engineers. We can build such kind of cars, and I think this is a strong message.”
The post Hyundai gunning for Europe’s top performance-car brands with Ioniq 6 N appeared first on Drive.