Hyundai RM20e EV Prototype First Drive: Bring It On

Everything about this is the best kind of silly: Hyundai’s N team has essentially turned a Veloster into a mid-engine race car with 810 horsepower. That’s a crazy amount of muscle for your average race car, and especially so for one with a wheelbase this short. But it’s no joke; it’s the Hyundai RM20e prototype.

Oh, and did we mention it’s purely electric? All batteries and electric motors, no gas.

Yes, motors, plural. Where most rear-drive EVs have one motor, this thing has four. And it’s still rear-drive. To produce all that power plus 708 lb-ft of torque, N engineers joined two electric motors end to end and connected that to one of the rear wheels, then did the same thing on the other side. The motors point forward to help weight balance, and they drive each wheel entirely independently of the others. The motor control software balances the power output for each wheel, acting as a virtual limited-slip differential.

Power for the crazy contraption comes from a Rimac-supplied battery of unspecified capacity, about the size of a large suitcase and mounted behind the seats. At full race tilt, it can provide about 25 miles of range. At tricky Sonoma Raceway, that’s roughly 10 laps. Yes, a larger battery could be fitted for more range, but then you get into a battle of diminishing returns as weight increases substantially quicker than does range, and there’s no more effective way to dull a powerful car than to make it heavy.

Before turning us loose on the full road course, the N folks had us do a lap of an autocross course set up in the parking lot. Detuned to “only” 650 horsepower and the accelerator sensitivity dialed back to granny-safe, the RM20e was quick, but it didn’t feel 650-hp quick. Driving around the pedal tuning wasn’t hard, but even foot-down we expected greater acceleration.

Thankfully, there’s a little dial on the steering wheel that takes care of that problem. After a warm-up lap on the big track, the N engineer in the right seat gave us the green light to crank it up to the full output. It’s amazing what an extra 160 horses can do. In one instant, the RM20e went from sport-sedan quick to supercar quick. The handlers were even nice enough to alter the accelerator calibration while the car charged between the autocross session and the big track.

Completely unchained, N division says the RM20e will hit 60 mph in less than 3 seconds and 120 mph in less than 10 seconds, and it feels like it. Response is instantaneous at any speed, and there’s no fall-off in power at high or low motor rpm. It pulls like it’s using launch control any time you put the pedal down.

Which is why you should make sure to warm the barely street-legal 265/35R19 front and 305/30R20 rear Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires. Why not race slicks? The whole RM project is as much about developing technologies for future roadgoing sports cars as it is race cars. Regardless, even streetable R-compound tires need heat, and the little RM20e is a bit of a handful when they’re cold.

It’s not just because of the raw power, but also that short wheelbase and mid-motor configuration. Both have their engineering advantages but also the side effect of making the car want to spin like a top if the rear end breaks loose. All warmed up, the tires work with the race aerodynamics and the RM20e sticks like glue, but when they’re cold, anything from trail-braking on the way into a corner to just a hair too much accelerator on the way out will have the car trying to swap ends. It happens quickly, but it’s easy to catch if you know what you’re doing—and your reflexes are good enough.

Oh, and that’s with the stability control in its second most lenient setting. Along with cranking up the power, the right-seat engineer also let us click the stability knob over to its least-restrictive setting. If it ever activated, in either setting, we weren’t aware of it. Once the tires were warm, it wasn’t an issue anyway.

Similarly, we couldn’t tell you how much of the braking was done by the mechanical six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers and how much was regenerative. Whatever balance the N team dialed in was invisible. It felt entirely like traditional mechanical braking, but we were assured the motors were braking the rear wheels and harvesting energy.

Equally invisible was any torque vectoring. With no mechanical connection between the rear wheels, the computer effectively vectors torque at all times to account for every curve. However aggressive it may have actuated on track, we didn’t notice it. The car just flat out went when we wanted it to.

The experience is far from silent, and not just because the interior is stripped out. The N crew firmly believes sound is integral to the driving experience and have no compunction about blasting artificial motor noises inside the car and out. During our drive, it was set to a sci-fi V-8 sound, which was frankly pretty cool because who doesn’t want to drive something out of Star Wars?

Other journalists apparently needed a turn, so we only got two laps on the big track, but it was enough to convince us fully electric sports and track cars are going to be awesome. Battery technology breakthroughs should allow for greater range without adding substantial weight, but just in case they don’t, the N division is also working on a new RM model with an onboard hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity for extended range.

However future cars like this get their electricity, if they’re anything like this fantastically fun little car to whip around a track, it gives us even more confidence in our electrified future. There’s no word on if or when a car like this will go on sale, but tech from previous RMs has already made it to street cars, so it’s only a matter of time. We hope it doesn’t take long.

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