So I Drove Both: Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, and Here's Which Electric Muscle Car Won My Heart for $70K

t Torque News, we shy away from head-to-head comparisons with one definitive winner chosen by us. After all, what do we know about your priorities? Without knowing what you value most, how can any reviewer/tester say which is the best car overall? They can’t. What we can do is test the cars and report on their strengths so that you can see which might be best along with what you might want more. Let’s dig right into this match up of two of our very favorite vehicles, the 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N - Pricing
Our Dodge Charger tester had some nifty options we felt were very important. The total price, including the Destination Charge, was $70,175. Our most recent  Ioniq 5 N Tester (we’ve tested 2) had a price including Freight Charges of $68,900. These two are virtually identical in price, and dealer discounting and incentives may tip the scale a bit one way or the other. We’d look at which had the best lease deal since we recommend leasing, not buying EVs. 

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N Powertrain 
Both of these cars have great powertrains. The Dodge has 496 hp and 404 lb-ft of torque. Not too shabby. Bear in mind that this is not the Scat Pack, which has a bigger punch. The Hyundai has Dodge beat here. It can produce 568 lb-ft of torque and 601 hp. If you buy cars based on numbers on a page, it would appear the Ioniq 5 N is your huckleberry. We have a lot more to say on these two, so we hope you stick around. 

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N - Interiors, Seats, Infotainment
Well, Hyundai took the power specs hands-down, but in our expert opinion, the choice is a lot harder when it comes to interiors, seats, and infotainment. Let’s start with seats. Dodge gives you a premium leather-style material that is both ventilated and heated. The seats are power adjustable, as they should be at this price point. Hyundai, by contrast, offers you microfiber suede heated and ventilated seats with a racy five-point harness look. They are manual (boo!). If we were headed to a track, we’d opt for the Hyundai seats. However, for all other uses, the Dodge seats beat the Hyundai seats due to the power adjustment.

The Dodge’s infotainment system offers a great head-up display, great digital driver info display, and one of the very best center screens we’ve ever tested. Hyundai does not offer you a HUD. Here’s one real-world difference. We could operate Android Auto and Apple CarPlay wirelessly in the Dodge. The Hyundai would only work if we plugged our phone in. Advantage Dodge. The Dodge Alpine Audio is a B+. The Hyundai Bose Audio is a B. Too close to call. 

One last area we should compare is the roof of these two great cars. The Dodge Charger has a full glass roof with tinted glass and a shade. This is ideal for cruising. Every fun car should have some sort of novel roof. The Ioniq 5 N has no roof options but metal with a headliner. Perfect for track days. 

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N - Coupe vs. 4-Door and Usable Space
These two are both hatchbacks, and that is fantastic. With the rear seats up, the Dodge has 23 cu ft, and seats down it grows to 39 cu ft. Pretty big, but the Ioniq 5 beats it. The Hyundai offers you 26 cu ft seats up, and a whopping 59 cu ft seats up. Advantage Hyundai.

We were able to put a giant of a man in the back seat of the Dodge comfortably, but you need to bend and twist to enter and exit. The Hyundai has a generous back seat and two free doors. If practicality is you goal, the Hyundai wins. However… We LOVE the coupe look. If we are talking fun, performance cars, two rear doors are not a big plus. The Dodge offers 103 cu ft of total passenger volume, and the Hyundai gives you 107. Both feel super roomy inside. This one comes down to personal preference. 

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N - The Drive
This one is tricky because we have not yet tracked these two cars. COVID disrupted our annual track days. We can only comment on our observations on public roads. However, we will say, the Ioniq 5 N has the better on-track credentials, and it’s not really close. 

Around town, both are very good. The Dodge is the more comfortable cruiser. Its suspension is less firm, and it tires are all-season Goodyear Eagle Sports. The Dodge is bigger, so parking is a bit challenging. However, the Ioniq 5 N has an odd scrubb thing it does when you turn it sharply at low speeds to move around tight spaces. Neither is ideal for day-to-day grocery grabs, but both can do the job. 

Pick up the pace when you have room to run, and both feel quick, and they also feel fast. The Ioniq 5 N feels a bit more of both. The Dodge packs one-thousand-pounds (say it slowly) more weight and has less power and torque. Physics does not lie. The Ioniq 5 N is the better go-fast car.

However, if we had a mountain road to enjoy and some wide open spaces, we would lean toward the Dodge. It has power aplenty, and its driver door sill is perfect for resting one’s left arm. The Dodge has a great personality for long Sunday drives in the wide open places. The Ioniq 5 N feels more like a Sunday autocrosser. On a road course type of track, both would be a blast, but the Ioniq 5 N would record better lap times (we are 99% certain). Pick your car accordingly.

Interestingly, both of these cars have literally ideal Drive Mode and Boost buttons. The Ioniq 5 N has the cooler name. NGB, as in N grin boost. The Dodge calls its Power Shot. This is a tie. Each of these cars has ideal drive modes for fun on and off track. 

Dodge offers its Fratzonic Exhaust note via a menu. The Ioniq 5 N offers you a steering wheel button. If you plan to use the fake engine noises, the Ioniq 5 N has a definite advantage. Believe us when we tell you these imitation car noises get old fast. It would shock us if folks use them all the time. 

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N - Living Electric
Most EV owners charge most of the time at home. The good news for shoppers is that both the Dodge and Hyundai offer 11kW charging on Level 2 chargers (home or public). That means both can make use of a full 48 amp, 220-volt circuit. In other words, they will charge as quickly as practical on any L2 charger. Even Steven tie here.

On DC fast chargers, Hyundai has a paper advantage. It offers a possible peak charge rate a smidge above the Dodge’s. In practical terms, this is barely a point that matters. Most of the time, when charging on a DC charger, the temperature and the charger’s occupancy both reduce the total output significantly. Theoretically, the Ioniq 5 N may charge a bit quicker, but only sometimes. 

When it comes to efficiency, range, and annual energy costs, the Dodge is the on-paper winner. It has a range of 268 miles vs. the Hyundai’s 221. It has an 85 MPGe rating vs. the Ioniq 5 N’s 78. And finally, it has a $900 annual fuel cost guestimate vs. the Hyundai’s $950. Frankly, all of this is meaningless in our opinion. These are both specialty cars intended for occasional use. If they were daily commuter cars, we’d say the Dodge has a meaningful edge when it comes to living electric. Both have CCS ports, so they use the same charging handles. 

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 vs. Hyundai Ioniq 5 N - The Final Word
We have spent eight days with the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 and fourteen days with the Ioniq 5 N. We drove them in a wide variety of conditions. It seems to us that the Ioniq 5 N would be the better race-day car. It has more power, lower weight, and racecar tires. However, for a back-country blast on a Sunday, we’d give the edge to the Dodge. It’s more comfortable, equally fast on public roads, and it has a slightly better interior package. One thing is for sure, Both are world-class performance cars. Both would have been considered supercars 20 years ago. At $70K, these two EVs are also special in that they seem to justify their price tags much more than most EVs we test do. They can hang with gas-powered performance cars on any public road, and the Ioniq can likely dust all but a small handful in a closed-course race. 

We’ve given you our honest, unfiltered opinions. Now, please tell us in the comments below which you would choose if you were shopping for a $70K performance EV. 

About Those Teslas - The Tesla Model S Plaid starts at $96,630, 30% more than these fully-equipped models do. We just checked the Tesla build tool to be sure. Add red paint, a cream interior, FSD, a sunshade, fancy rims, and your total cost will be fully 50% above the cost of these cars. The Model 3 Performance is a great performance car, but it has meaningfully less passenger and cargo volume and is not a hatchback. 
 

Images of 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N by John Goreham.

John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.