The annual Goodwood Festival of Speed has become a place for automakers to show off some of their latest market entries or what buyers can look for in the future.
Hyundai’s move to run its RN22e all-electric prototype was a way to show what’s coming. The South Korea automaker did garner plenty of attention for its battery-electric future, just not quite the way officials planned — a spectacular crash.
The prototype was less than a minute into its run up the hill when the driver ran over a bit of grass while perhaps heading into a corner with a little too much gusto. The result? A drive straight into the hay bales, resulting in an impressively massive explosion of sticks and straw.
Fortunately, neither the driver nor anyone nearby was hurt in the incident — well, maybe the driver’s pride — but the car wasn’t able to continue. How badly the car was damaged was difficult to tell, and Hyundai hasn’t released an official statement as of the publication of this story, but there were several pieces of the vehicle strewn about in the hay.
Many drivers like to push it to the limit at Goodwood and the RN22e is an ideal vehicle to see what that is with 577 horsepower and 546 pound-feet of torque produced by dual electric motors. It’ll race from stop to 60 mph in just 3 seconds, Hyundai says.
It also has track-ready suspension, upgraded aero and Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires — none of which helped to right the ship as the car skidded into the corner.
Racing at Goodwood?
The brand was at the legendary event in the UK to hype its first performance EV, the Ioniq 5 N. It represents Hyundai’s long-standing legacy of offering high-quality mobility alongside driver-focused N models, officials noted.
N brand made a comeback to WRC in 2014 and its subsequent success with multiple world championships infused Hyundai with a winning DNA, reflected in the N high-performance models. This momentum carries forward with electrification, as the award-winning E-GMP-based Ioniq 5 provides the perfect foundation to create N’s first high-performance EV.
“Hyundai N spearheads the technological leadership of Hyundai Motor Co.,” said Jaehoon Chang, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Co., in a released statement before the incident.
“N brand’s winning combination of technological know-how and motorsport experience is pushing the limits of vehicle performance, which has most recently resulted in Ioniq 5 N, a gamechanger for electric high performance. Key developments around this vehicle will further strengthen the competitiveness of all Hyundai models going forward. This is why N brand exists.”
Ioniq 5 N combines the standard model’s Electrified-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) with N’s motorsport-bred technologies and leverages N’s expertise from electrified ‘Rolling Labs’ (e.g., RM20e, RN22e and N Vision 74) to maximize the EV’s high-performance capabilities and ensure it meets N’s three performance pillars: Corner Rascal, Racetrack Capability and Everyday Sportscar.
Next wave of EVs
The Ioniq 5 N is just the latest in a series of high-performance electric vehicles coming from automakers. Many of those are adopting the performance markers, in the case of Hyundai the “N” brand, letting potential buyers know their favorite automaker’s high-performance development team is hard at work.
Mercedes-AMG already offers four AMG variants for its EQ lines (the EQS and EQE models). Plenty more are in the works. Let’s not forget offerings like the Tesla “Plaid” package and Lucid Motor’s Sapphire edition.