Hyundai: N Brand Holds The Key To Becoming ‘Most Respected’ Performance Manufacturer

Hyundai is done dipping its toes into the performance pool. For years, the Korean automaker has used the N designation to talk about its sportier models and the top-notch hardware used by its race teams, but now the time has come for to the masses to drive sportier vehicles as well. Giving the Veloster the N treatment in 2019 as the first N vehicle in the U.S. made sense – who doesn’t like a hot hatch? – but now Hyundai is going to give the N boost to models across its line up.

When discussing the N brand, Hyundai consistently talks about how the name has three meanings. First, the N stands for Namyang, where Hyundai has its global R&D center in Korea and where the whole idea of the N models was born. Second, the N references the famous Nürburgring track in Germany, which Hyundai uses as its European Test Center. Third, the N logo can be seen as a twisting road course chicane, the company says. The most important definition, though, is what N will mean for Hyundai’s market presence.

“The N brand vision is to become the world’s most respected manufacturer in terms of performance,” said Olabisi Boyle, Hyundai’s vice president of product planning and mobility strategy. “Our goal is to get the hearts of our customers racing and keep them there.”

Just shaving off seconds of a lap time isn’t the goal, she said. The increased performance has to be accessible, too, letting non-professional drivers experience the improvements. To that end, Hyundai currently offers three N models in the U.S., including two N Line vehicles – the Elantra N Line and the Sonata N Line – and the Veloster N. The company has also unveiled prototypes of the Elantra N and the Tucson N Line, and says it is going to expand the N treatment to the SUV segment for a total of seven N brand models by the end of 2022, three N models and four N Line models. The next model to arrive in the U.S. will be the Elantra N.

These vehicles won’t be huge sellers – Michael Evanoff, Hyundai North America’s senior manager of product planning, said he expects the Elantra N to maybe make up five-to-10 percent of Elantra sales – but the N brand expands the market for Hyundais in general, attracting younger customers who are more likely (but not exclusively) to be male.

“The whole N brand, in general, has attracted buyers that never considered the Hyundai brand before,” he said. “It’s reaching a broader market than the mainstream brand.”

One thing to note is the difference between N and N Line in Hyundai’s world. While all N brand models have sportier exteriors, refined powertrains and tuned suspension and exhaust notes compared to the base models, N Line Hyundai vehicles have a lower level of performance enhancements than the “purist” N models. For example, the 2021 Elantra uses a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that produces 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque. The 2021 Elantra N Line, on the other hand, produces 201 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque from a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine. Then there’s the upcoming Elantra N, which will use a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine that produces 276 horsepower and 289 pound-feet. Other differences between the standard Elantra and the N Line version include larger front brake rotors, better standard tires and stiffer suspension. Details for the Elantra N are not yet available, but expect similar upgrades there.

Hyundai has also envisioned how the N brand could evolve in the future, including some alternative powertrains. There was the hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered Hyundai N 2025 Vision Gran Turismo back in 2015, but the next phase will be battery powered. For the past six years, development of the N brand models has been shaped by Hyundai’s racing midship (RM) program, Boyle said, and Hyundai’s latest RM performance prototype is the electrified RM20e Racing Midship Sports Car, which was revealed earlier in 2020. The RM20e is a rear-drive all-electric track vehicle with an 800-volt motor that produces the equivalent of 810 horsepower and 708 pound-feet of torque. Hyundai said its RM prototypes are basically rolling testbeds for applications in future N models, and that the RM20e “signifies the electric-based high-performance potential for Hyundai N brand.”

That future brings with it a challenge for the N line-up. Currently, an exaggerated exhaust note is one way the N models announce their presence. Derek Joyce, senior manager of Hyundai’s N-Models, said he understands aural excitement is a key part of enjoying the drive, and Hyundai is already working on ways to make a synthetic sound that reacts with the performance level – changing pitches with the RPM, for example – in future N models.

“As the industry and the world move more and more towards electrification, we’re going to try and provide that aural excitement as part of the driving experience,” Joyce said. “It may be a unique sound, or it may be an augmented traditional sound. The jury’s still out on that.”

Joyce compared the work Hyundai is doing with a future electric N sound to how the original Mazda Miata’s exhaust note was tuned to sound bigger than its 1.6-liter engine suggested.

“They still put all that time in, because they knew that that sound was key,” he said. “It would be premature for anyone to say what our sound will be. Will it develop into an electric sound or will it develop into a modified faux gasoline sound? I don’t know.”

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, Porsche and those used in the Formula E racing series provide examples of how new sounds can still mean “faster, faster, faster!” and Hyundai isn’t going to miss out here. In 2019, Hyundai and Kia invested $180 million in the electric performance car start-up Rimac to help advance the RM platform and Hyundai unveiled an all-electric version of the Veloster N called the Veloster N ETCR in September 2019. Evanoff said the ETCR shows how performance and electrification are merging together and the races that the ETCR will participate in will some day make their way to production N models.

“We look forward to learning as much as possible and bringing that to the showroom at some point,” he said.