Driven+ put a 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 6 N on track against a tuned Nissan GT-R, and the electric car came out ahead by the smallest of margins. The video reports the Ioniq lapping in 50.01 seconds to the GT-R's 50.07, a gap of six hundredths on a short circuit. The GT-R here is not stock: it is an R35 with a 3.8 liter V6 tuned by Lichfield to 650 horsepower and 800 Nm, on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. The Ioniq 6 N brings 641 horsepower and 770 Nm from an 84 kWh battery, on Pirelli P Zero tires. Both are all-wheel drive. One is a hand-built engine nearly two decades in the making. The other is batteries and software. The clock barely separated them.
The headline is that an EV beat a tuned GT-R, but the interesting part is how close it was, and what the test does not show. On paper the Hyundai gives away a lot: the video lists it at 2,166 kilograms against the GT-R's 1,722, roughly 440 kilograms heavier. It made that back with instant torque off the corners, which the hosts point to repeatedly. What one flying lap cannot reveal is consistency. EVs on track tend to lose power as the battery and motors heat up, so a single fast lap is a best case, not a picture of a full session. The GT-R, by contrast, is a known quantity that has been lapping circuits for years, and the hosts repeatedly remind viewers how well a design this old has aged. It also matters that the hosts thought both cars had more to give: they suggest that on stickier semi-slick tires, each could dip into the 49 second bracket. Read this as a snapshot of where the two technologies now sit rather than a verdict on which is quicker over a full twenty minute stint.
The hosts spend as much time on feel as on the stopwatch. On the GT-R, they praise the engine and brakes but note the front tires wash out once the power goes down, which they say costs corner exit and lap time. On the Ioniq 6 N, they lean into its party tricks: a simulated eight-speed shift mode Hyundai calls N e-Shift, fake exhaust crackles piped into the cabin, and an adjustable torque split the driver set to 80 percent rear to make it rotate. They admit those effects exist to please the driver rather than to go faster, and still come away impressed by the braking and body control on a heavy car. Their scoring gives both high marks across engine or motor, gearbox, brakes, and handling. On the track leaderboard shown in the video, the two finish next to each other, the Ioniq in 15th and the GT-R in 16th. One recurring gripe is the GT-R's column-mounted paddle shifters, which the hosts dock points for, while both cars get launch control runs during the test. On the day, on this circuit and these tires, the video reports the Hyundai a tenth quicker in feel and six hundredths quicker on the clock.
Bottom line: The result matters less than the fact that it is now a fair fight. A tuned, hand-built GT-R and a showroom electric Hyundai traded lap times within a rounding error, and the hosts clearly respected both. If you love the GT-R, this is not an insult; it is a reminder of how good a twenty-year-old design still is. If you are EV-curious and worried that performance means numb, the Ioniq 6 N is the counterargument. The engine is no longer the only way to build a car that is genuinely fun to drive fast.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.