Hyundai bags 2026 World Performance Car with Ioniq 6 N

Hyundai made sure to keep its performance EVs exciting with the Ioniq 5 N. And now, the Korean manufacturer has once again won the approval of World Car Awards jurors.

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 N has been given the World Performance Car award for 2026. This marks the 2nd time for the brand to receive the honor, and brings the total number of awards won by Hyundai to 9 in the last five years.

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 N was chosen from an initial list of 20 contenders, where a jury of 98 distinguished international automotive journalists from 33 countries selected the winning cars by secret ballot based on their evaluation of each eligible vehicle.

A shortlist of three finalists was announced in early March, where the Ioniq 6 N competed with the BMW M2 CS and the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray for top honors.

"This recognition from the World Car Awards jury means a great deal to the thousands of people at Hyundai who designed, engineered, and built this vehicle. Customers appreciate great design, advanced technology, and real-world value that the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N offers. We are grateful to the jury for this honor. And we are grateful to the customers around the world who choose Hyundai every day and inspire everything we build. This award belongs to them and to the team that earned it," said José Muñoz, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company.

Based on the World Car Award criteria, vehicles eligible for World Performance Car must be produced in volumes of at least 1,000 units/year, must be overtly performance-focused in overall character, and must be “on-sale" in at least two major markets (China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Latin America, USA) on at least two separate continents within the period January 1, 2025 and March 30, 2026.