Hyundai Ioniq 6 N

Electric performance saloon promises ferocious performance and fast charging On sale Early 2026 Price from £66,000 (est)

- STEVE HUNTINGFORD

THERE'S AN OLD joke about Charles Dickens' masterpiece Great Expectations, with the punchline: 'It wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be'. However, there's also an underlying truth behind this that highlights the challenge facing the fully electric Hyundai Ioniq 6 N performance car.

You see, when the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N hot hatch was launched in late 2023, little was expected of it because - at the time - it had few electric rivals, and none of them were much fun to drive. So, people were blown away when they discovered the 5 N was both faster than petrol alternatives and every bit as thrilling in its own way.

But, of course, it's going to be harder for this souped-up version of the Ioniq 6 executive car to have the same impact, because we've now seen what Hyundai's N performance division can do. And things are made tougher still by the fact that the 6 N competes in a sector of the market where there are already brilliant alternatives, including the Audi E-tron GT, BMW i4 M50 and Porsche Taycan.

How, then, has Hyundai gone about tackling them? Well, like the Ioniq 5 N, the 6 N has a motor on each axle to deliver four-wheel drive and a combined output of up to 641bhp.