Hyundai Ioniq 5 vs Polestar 3

What's the difference?

What is it about single letters and performance cars? 

BMW has M, Volkswagen has R, Lexus has F, and with only 23 choices left Hyundai opted for N - which stands for Namyang, site of the brand’s sprawling proving ground and development centre in South Korea, and Nurburgring, the famous German racing circuit where its performance cars are fine-tuned.

And like BMW M Sport, VW R-Line and Lexus F Sport, the Korean giant has N Line as a ‘lite’ option. Sporty models that add a little more punch and visual flair without crossing the line into hardcore hot-rod territory. 

And this is one its latest examples, the pure-electric Ioniq 5 SUV in top-spec Epiq AWD trim and equipped with the N Line Option Pack as well as the tricky Digital Mirror Pack.

In this configuration it slots into the $90K price band, which means it has a lot to live up to in terms of performance, safety, driving dynamics, value and more. 

So, stay with us to see if this premium five-seater is the kind of sporty EV SUV that gets your heart racing.

Sometimes, a vehicle facelift doesn’t amount to much. Maybe a nip here, a tuck there, but to be sure you’re looking at the new version, you need to check the badges.

To be honest, the revised Polestar 3 SUV is a bit of that, with very little to visually distinguish the facelift from the previous car. But underneath there are some serious upgrades which, in that oh-so-Swedish understated way, serve to make the Polestar 3 an even more tantalising prospect.

The Polestar 3 has now moved to 800-volt technology which not only allows for faster charging, it also opens up the prospect of even more performance. A new generation of lithium-ion batteries also means greater range potential.

But it’s nice to see that Polestar hasn’t limited its attention to the drivetrain; there’s now a revised anti-roll-bar system and a recalibration of the power steering assistance. Which just goes to show that even though brands like Polestar trade on being an all-electric solution, there are still some engineers in Sweden who know how the rest of a car should work.

Meantime, the medium-large SUV space is a very crowded one right now, so the question is whether the new tech – invisible as it is – is enough to keep the Polestar 3 carving out its slice of that market.