Electric Cars Aren't Supposed to Feel Like This — Hyundai Is Making Sure They Do Anyway
Manfred Harrer says fake gear shifts and synthetic engine sound are just the start — Hyundai is chasing something wilder for its next electric N cars.
Electric cars are supposed to be smooth, silent, almost clinical. Hyundai has other plans. According to Manfred Harrer, President and Head of R&D at Hyundai Motor Group, electrification and artificial intelligence are now the two forces rewriting the rules of car design — and the electric drivetrain isn’t a limitation, it’s a blank canvas. Engineers, he says, have never had this much freedom to shape how a car handles, how it distributes power, or how it simply feels.
Hyundai already proved the point with the Ioniq 5 N. The car fakes gear changes with N e-shift, fakes engine noise with N Active Sound+, and juggles torque between the wheels with N Torque Distribution. Why would an EV pretend to have a gearbox at all? Because that pretending is exactly what made the Ioniq 5 N feel alive. Harrer admits some of these modes still feel a little too artificial — which means the next generation needs to shake, rev and roar more convincingly than ever.
And it doesn’t stop there. Future performance EVs could run multiple motors, each controlling its own wheel independently. That’s not just a spec sheet flex — it means the balance, the traction, and the cornering behavior of a car could be rewritten on the fly.
There’s a more practical side to this story too. Hyundai wants to cut its sprawling lineup of EV platforms down to just two: a 400-volt architecture and an 800-volt one. Compact models get the cheaper 400-volt setup paired with LFP batteries, while bigger, more powerful cars stick with 800-volt systems. But don’t mistake this for a cost-cutting retreat from emotion — in its performance cars, Hyundai insists it’s chasing power and that gut feeling that makes people want a sports car in the first place.