IONIQ EV SOUNDS LIKE MY CAR OF THE YEAR

HYUNDAI'S 5 N LETS YOU SHIFT GEARS AND EVEN REV THE 'ENGINE'

- COLIN GOODWIN

THIS week we test a groundbreaking motor which will be my car of the year unless something emerges from under the radar in the next five months.

It's the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. It's electric - so why is it ground breaking?

Because it's the first high-performance EV we've driven that shows an electric car could appeal to a petrolhead.

Let's get straight to why that's so. As we've explained before, it's extremely easy to get high performance from an electric car because EVS come with a large power source (the battery) and then it's just a matter of channelling that energy into powerful electric motors.

This car has a lot of power. It's 89kWh battery feeds two electric motors that together produce a combined 601bhp.

The top speed is 161mph and 0-62mph takes only 3.4sec.

But it's not the performance that makes this car stand out - a Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model S Plaid can match these numbers- instead it's what the engineering behind it does for the driving experience.