Hyundai Inster review

From £23,495

Tiny on the outside, big on the inside, the Inster looks to go toe-to-toe with larger rivals with its own unique way of doing things

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The Hyundai Inster is a tiny city car, yet with equipment levels that wouldn’t look out of place in a Mercedes-Benz.

While it has grown-up technology, its looks are far more cutesy. It is an electric car, yet small dimensions don’t mean a small range, as it will go up to 229 miles between charges.

An interesting and quite different proposition to the norm, then, in being a small car on the outside but does an impression of a larger one in its equipment levels and pricing. 

Few cars have a track record of success in being small yet with a premium price, the Honda E coming to recent memory to that end. Still, any preservation of small cars is to be welcomed, particularly one as unique in its positioning as the Inster. 

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DESIGN & STYLING

Hyundai Inster review front hard cornering

The Inster really is small - 3.8m long, 1.6m wide and 1.6m high - which places it between the length of a Hyundai i10 and a Hyundai i20. It’s a similar width to the i10, but is taller than its range mates due to the need to package a battery. This is still a city car rather than a small SUV, though. 

The Korean-market and petrol-powered Hyundai Casper is the Inster’s donor car, but it has been stretched 230mm over that model, 180mm in the wheelbase, to create room for a battery pack in the floor and to allow for a more spacious and flexible interior with more export appeal. 

No, the name doesn’t have anything to do with Instagram
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

Mechanically, it's very simple: a front-mounted electric motor powers the front wheels while there's MacPherson strut suspension at the front and coupled torsion beam axle at the rear.

A Suzuki Ignis comes to mind when you first see it in its proportions, as a slightly raised, boxy city car. The styling though is more playful and it looks a very happy car; it’s not quite got the retro cool of the Honda E, yet nor does it look like simply an electric version of an i10. 

INTERIOR

Hyundai Inster 2024 review dash 103157

The Inster’s interior is perhaps its standout quality, both in its level of technology, perceived quality and flexibility.

All four of the seats fold flat, including the driver’s seat, to create a brilliantly versatile space. The rear seats can also slide forwards and back to either create more rear legroom or more boot space (up to 351 litres) than the standard 238 litres in their rearmost position. 

Korean-spec models feel even more plush, with the option of leather and the seats being ventilated as well as heated
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

The perceived quality also feels from a class or two above with the switchgear feeling solid and being nice to interact with. It’s a comfortable place to sit, too, and the steering wheel feels chunky and substantial in your hands. 

There is a central 10.25in touchscreen for the infotainment that is good to use and with nice graphics, while there is also a display of the same size for the driver. Yet these screens don’t make the interior feel overly tech-heavy, as lots of switches remain, including for the climate control system. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both standard. 

There’s plenty of clever storage, with the likes of a backlit tray cut into the dashboard in front of the passenger seat, as well as brilliant touches like the driver’s seat incorporating a cup holder near the centre console to allow the seat to be wider.

It feels like an interior that’s really been thought about and created specifically for the Inster, rather than simply being a scaled up or scaled down version of another model. 

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

Hyundai Inster 2024 review front tracking 606661

The Inster has two different motor options: one with 96bhp and the other 113bhp. The former gets paired with the standard 42kWh battery, the latter with the larger 49kWh. Both have the same 108lb ft torque output.

We tested the more powerful motor, and it offers good acceleration off the line but it quickly tails off. That sense of speed and being nippy is only really felt around town, but given that’s where the Inster will likely spend most of its time that’s understandable.

The Inster has a front motor for front-wheel drive, and lacks the kind of killer turning circle rear-wheel drive city cars like the Honda E can muster
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

A reason it feels so slow when the speeds get above around 30-40mph is the weight. The Inster is more than 400kg heavier than an i10, a huge amount. This means it lacks the pep and verve of an i10, and leads to an overall dynamic impression that is a bit dull and laboured.

RIDE & HANDLING

Hyundai Inster 2024 review front tracking 104033

The Inster feels tiny on the road yet never dwarfed by traffic. Like all the best small cars, it is narrow, allowing you to nip around urban roads and gaps in the traffic with always plenty of room to move around in a lane.

However, the suspension isn’t the most sophisticated, lacking low-speed wheel control due to the heavy weight of the car.

It’s all very predictable to drive, which will suit a large number of buyers yet it would still be nice if the Inster could make you raise a smile
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

The trade off is that it does feel a more mature car at higher speeds, feeling less dwarfed in motorway running than an i10 and being at its most comfortable. 

The way it handles and the way the performance is delivered raises more of a philosophical point about small electric cars: so much of the joy of driving a small petrol car comes in how light they are, and what a joy they are to interact with through things like changing gear.

The weight of the battery and a single-speed auto' negates most of that in the Inster, and it lacks any real memorable character as a result. 

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

Hyundai Inster review front

The Inster is priced from £23,495 for a smaller battery version (this 42kWh model’s range is yet to be homologated in Europe, yet is rated at 186 miles in Korea).

The 229-mile version gets a larger 49kWh battery and costs from £25,045; this is the version we tested, and had a displayed range of 220 miles on test. An extra £1700 gets you the range-topping 02 trim, which is only available with the larger battery.

The range didn’t seem to deplete even as speeds rise, suggesting an all-roads real-world range in excess of 200 miles is achievable
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

For context, that base model is a good £8500 more than the ever so slightly shorter Dacia Spring, albeit the Hyundai is much more sophisticated, better equipped and has more range. 

A Citroen e-C3 is a class up in size, but still £1500 cheaper than Hyundai and itself has more range, although the Inster undercuts the e-C3 on finance payments and has more kit.

The Renault 5 is the biggest elephant in the room, with near price parity for long and short range versions, and all that style to go with it while still being a small car with a premium feel at under four metres itself. 

Standard kit is generous, including a heat pump, dual 10.25in displays for the interior and a whole host of active safety kit, including Hyundai’s excellent blind spot monitoring system that displays a live image in the driver display. You need the 02 trim for heated seats and a steering wheel. 

VERDICT

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The Inster takes much of what we know about small cars and turns it on its head.

It feels mature at higher speeds while lacking the character you’d expect at lower speeds, and packs in plenty of equipment into such a small package rather than feeling entry level in where it is pitched. It’s got the versatility of much larger cars inside, too. 

Perhaps Hyundai should consider an Inster with less kit and a sub-£20,000 target price. As offered, it's well equipped, but you do pay for it all.
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

Ultimately, buyers are going to need to be convinced that being small is a premium worth paying for, and Hyundai and the Inster would need to buck an age-old trend to do so.

If it had the charm and character of an i10 in the way it drove, the Inster might make a better case. As it stands, buyers are really going to need to find value in its equipment levels and eschew many petrol rivals, let alone electric ones like the Renault 5.

 

Mark Tisshaw

mark-tisshaw-autocar
Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?, Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.