'This freedom is not so common': How the 2026 Ioniq 6 N halo performance car was the result of a 'huge degree of freedom' given to engineers and designers

Hyundai has a new fast car. You’ve probably already seen it if you’re reading this, but we’ll come back to that. First you should know who Manfred Harrer is. 

As well as being one of Hyundai’s Executive Vice Presidents, he’s Head of the relatively new Performance Development Tech Unit.

Essentially he’s one of the key people involved in making sure Hyundai’s performance cars are as good as they can be.

He’s held positions at Audi, BMW and more prominently Porsche, leading development in the areas of dynamics and performance. 

It’s been a little more than a year since he joined Hyundai, effectively taking over where Hyundai Motor Group’s former performance doyen, Albert Biermann, left off. 

In a sign that things are changing at Hyundai, Harrer is tasked with “enhancing the performance of Hyundai Motor and Kia vehicles as they transition into the electrification era”.

So it feels fitting that the first major project to come out of Hyundai’s N division since Harrer joined is the all-electric and very impressive Hyundai Ioniq 6 N.

It should be pointed out, just in case there’s any misunderstanding about how executives operate within automotive businesses, that Harrer didn’t come in and build the car himself. 

CarsGuide was in South Korea weeks before the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N was revealed for a preview drive of the electric performance car, and spoke with some of Hyundai’s engineers at the time.

Regardless of seniority, it’s clear the results that come out of Hyundai N are the work of a whole group who each has such precise knowledge and passion in their field. Harrer just happens to be the man who needs to make sure that keeps happening. Fortunately, it seems he’s quite good at it. 

Harrer is used to working with elite teams like this, but one thing he didn’t expect when he arrived at Hyundai and began working with the team who were underway with the Ioniq 6 N was the level of freedom the team was awarded.

“It's not so common,” Harrer said.

“Normally, you're always running the business case first, and the investment and and the material cost and the volume behind it. And normally in the automotive industry you are very often limited on this.

“But here it was clear, if we have the ideas to improve the car, make it faster, increase the performance, make it easier to drive, do it. And with this degree of freedom.”

This might be surprising even to outsiders given the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N is, on the surface at least, the result of the existing tech in the Ioniq 5 N transferred into the existing Ioniq 6.

It even has the same outputs as the 5 N, 478kW and 770Nm at peak N Grin Boost mode, or ‘just’ 448kW/740Nm otherwise. 

But it’s not that simple. The team behind the Ioniq 6 N began the project by trying to find ways to improve the car, probably expecting that things would need to be left on the proverbial cutting room floor along the way.

But judging from Harrer’s recount of the process, the Ioniq 6 N team was given relatively free reign.

“The question was with the first prototypes, ‘okay, is this now a carryover, or what makes it different?’”

“The team shared all the learnings. The team discussed what they like on the [Ioniq 5 N], what they think we can do better, what potentially we see with the sedan-ish style in comparison to the SUV style. 

“And we walked through all these items and generated the picture or the vision of what we want to achieve with the car.”

Harrer said the most obvious example was the 6 N’s aerodynamics - its rear wing and pumped guards being rather different from the base Ioniq 6.

“There’s a very obvious one, a very easy one, like the aero. It was clear we have a great and awesome aerodynamic from the base car. 

“We want to keep it, but we need downforce. With the rear wing, what could be a reasonable aero target?”

The list of technical changes that have been made between the Ioniq 5 N and 6 N is longer than you might expect. The way its battery temperature management works has been upgraded for longer peak performance, for example, while the settings and customisation when it comes to Hyundai’s various N functions in the car has been turned up even more.

It’s a level of development that you’d expect a company to allow for a car that’s going to sell in high volumes, but the Ioniq 6 N is arguably more niche than even the Ioniq 5 N, which although an incredible machine hasn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire.

“The volume is small and to do so much changes this comes with some costs,” Harrer said.

“And normally it goes against the business case, but we had this degree of freedom. Performance first, and we secured ‘fun to drive’ as the goal number one.”

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 N has just been revealed in full at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and will launch in Australia at some point, though timing isn’t confirmed.