Caraganza Review 2022 Hyundai Elantra N: Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

It seems that someone at Hyundai likes me, either that or I just got lucky. Either way I got to spend a week with the N model not long after they’d been released to the general public and a few months after a week with the watered-down N Line.

As mentioned in my earlier review of the N Line, the biggest difference with the N Line and N is under that hood; except there are other differences I wasn’t aware of until I saw them in person for myself. Mainly the added accents to the N, the contrasting paint accents, the sport seats with extra bolsters wrapped in Alcantara and the pinstripe accents on the inside. There’s also the fact that in the N version the actual “N” in the center of the front seats lights up. Not sure if I think that’s cool or not.

What is cool or course is having more power under the hood from a 2.0 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder that delivers 75 more horses and 84 more pounds of torque; and of course, one of my favorite all time additions to any car, but something only offered from Hyundai: a little red button on the steering wheel marked “NGS”. Since I had experienced what that button does on a Veloster a year prior, I could only smile, or to be more succent: grin.

That’s because NGS stands for N Grin Shift. What it means is that when one presses that red button the sportiest mode available is engaged and the engine is overboosted from 276-hp to 286 for 20 seconds. The exhaust also opens up popping and roaring in response to the extra power as the car is launched like a SpaceX rocket delivering another load of Starlink satellites.

The first time I had tried this in the Veloster, I wasn’t sure of what it did and nearly ran over some poor mom in a minivan.

This time around though I understood the power of the NGS button and vowed to only use it for good. Which I did, mostly.

The N model, without the “Line” designation, is the top of the line in the Elantra lineup, which I find confusing; the N Line is not the top of the line, the N is.

Anyway, the N model has extra drive modes with N Custom 1 and 2 added to the Eco, Normal, and Sport settings along with bigger wheels and bigger brakes. There’s also an electronically controlled limited-slip differential, and unlike the 7-speed in the N Line, the N has an 8-speed Wet Dual-Clutch Transmission.

Yes, I can confirm that the N button does work as advertised, after all I had to check right? So, I did just that by myself.

But there was a problem: I loaded up the family for a night out, remembering my vow to use the NGS button for good, which meant that I couldn’t use it with my wife in the car lest I pin her back in the seat. That I knew would lead to my untimely and premature death most likely ruled a justifiable homicide if the judge were a woman.

My 6-foot 2-inch son reported from the backseat that he was surprised by the amount of room in the back (I’ve trained him well).

Sure, on the road, the Elantra was fine, but yet that red button seemed to grow, whispering at me like some sort of demon, ‘Push me, you know you want to’ it seemed to say every time I got to a straight stretch of road; ahh but these were city streets, and glancing at my wife nearby all I could picture was her shoving my fat body into a wood chipper, so I was able to resist the siren call of the button.

But without the possibility of using the NGS mode, driving the N on city streets became a wee bit annoying. Maybe it’s the extra power, or more likely the 8-speed dual clutch that seemed to hate idling at a stop light, popping up and down trying to find a gear and the exhaust rumbling as if frustrated I didn’t punch it when the light turned green.

The truth was as a straight up everyday family sedan the top-of-the-line N might not be the best choice. After all I suspect that the whispering voice would “force” the NGS button to be pressed, and woe be to me should my wife do that while she was behind the wheel. I shudder at the thought.

This doesn’t mean of course the Hyundai Elantra N isn’t a good car. No, it in fact it is a very good car, affordably priced (the MSRP is $33,195), sporty, powerful, and under the right conditions, something that could be a blast to drive, both literally, and figuratively.

But alas, Hyundai has broken my heart. The biggest change for 2023 is that the N no longer comes with a manual transmission as standard.

I’ve said that if we started writing in cursive and banned automatic transmissions, we could cripple an entire generation. Thanks to Hyundai however, it seems that generation is safe, for now anyway. Just don’t press the NGS button when your spouse is in the passenger seat unless you want to end up in a woodchipper.

2023 UPDATE (Hybrid): In February of 2023, Hyundai sent me a 2023 Elantra. Now I knew that for 2023 there were no big changes (except of course they took away the manual transmission, but they did add a few more horses under the hood).

For this go around I got to spend a week with the Hybrid Limited. There two levels in the hybrid lineup, both get a Hybrid powertrain with 1.6-liter engine and 139 hp but the torque is at 195 pound-feet which is equal to that of the N Line.

I am of course biased against hybrids, especially when I had the N and all it’s power. So surely, I wouldn’t like this latest Elantra.

(The 2023 Hybrid Limited)

 

I was wrong.

In the hybrid line there is the Hybrid Blue, and the Hybrid Limited. I had the Limited for my week. The Limited comes with a bunch of features and includes leather-trimmed seats, 10.25-inch touchscreen with navigation, and enhanced voice recognition system and gets 50 mpg combined.

I have to admit that I liked the more luxurious interior, and the upgrades the N model didn’t have. And despite the hybrid powerplant, I couldn’t tell the different from the normal ICE models. Sure, the MOSR is a bit more than the N line, $31,390, but with the fuel savings that could more than make up for it. Then there’s the fact that unlike the N model I would be a lot less inclined to end up wrapping this around a tree, or spending weeks in court fighting speeding tickets. So, at the end of the day the Hybrid might, okay, would be better to live with in the long term.

Greg Engle

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