HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 N-DISCOVERING THE PASSION OF DRIVING IN AN EV

JooN Park spells his name with a capital N-even if it's not his initial. JooN is the Vice President of Hyundai's N Brand Management Group. Oh, and he loves cars and he drives fast. Really fast.

- MANNY N.DE LOS REYES

One may say that JooN is the personification of Hyundai's N Brand. I certainly can after spending almost a week in Korea with him and two of his supremely emer potent cars the IONIQ 5 N and the Elantra N. Traditional car enthusiasts may scoff at the notion of a high-performance EV (which the IONIQ5 N is). I, too, was of that mindset, having grown up loving the smell of gasoline and the roar of an internal combustion engine-two things sadly absent when driving an EV.

JooN, a long-time car enthusiast, made it his life mission to change that petrol-biased mindset. And to make a long story short-after the tire smoke cleared and while our ears were still ringing with the glorious sound of a roaring internal combustion engine we were converts.

JooN waxes eloquent when he talks about his N cars, but he knows enough when to step aside and let his cars do the talking.

This is why we found ourselves in Hyundai Motor Group's vast Proving Ground in Taean, South Korea, just over two hours from Seoul. This is where we will be wringing the heck out of JooN's aforementioned two N models (not to mention riding in a luxurious Hyundai Palisade on an off-road test course).

But much of our track time was behind the wheel of the 650ps/770Nm IONIQ 5 N. Take a moment and let those numbers sink in. The mighty Ford Mustang has 450 horses. The iconic Nissan GT-R has 550. Hyundai's electric rocket has 650 (and way more torque than either of those legendary sports cars).

The IONIQ5 N can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds.

That's Porsche/Ferrari territory. In a spacious five-door car that you can load the family in and go to the supermarket with.