The Kona N’s excellence is confused by its curious market placement.
and given it most of the same N go-fast goodies—a smart decision given consumer tastes, but one that ultimately results in compromises on both the SUV and performance fronts.
Just looking at it, you'd hardly qualify the Kona as an SUV, but it does stand taller and sit higher than the Veloster, so on goes the label from Hyundai's marketing department and an invitation to our SUV of the Year competition.Most of the assembled staff was charmed by the Kona N's aggressive styling, with its split headlights and DRLs, splashes of red trim, and purposeful-looking aero.
The Kona N's red overboost button on the steering wheel provides an additional 10 horsepower for a short period of time for quicker acceleration. That brings the Kona N's max output up to 286 hp and 289 lb-ft of torque, but with the same torque and 276 hp on hand all the time, it never feels lacking. The powertrain is responsive in performance driving, and this little thing simply likes to charge hard.
The Kona N's handling on pavement is sublime, the chassis serving up precise, accurate steering and tons of grip. Plus,"you don't need to drive at 10/10ths to feel it," according to buyer's guide director Zach Gale. That said, although the N features various drive modes for varying conditions or preferences, there are too many ways to adjust the modes, and not all of them are intuitive.
The Kona N is also front-drive only with no option for all-wheel drive."The lack of AWD is a huge miss considering Subaru is abandoning STI buyers and hatch lovers," said Seabaugh, who was also frustrated with the car's eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which was"far too dumb to be left to its own devices." Other judges also impugned the gearbox for rough clutch takeup and wished for a proper manual transmission, which is unavailable on the Kona N.
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