Hyundai Inster review

If good things come in small packages, the Hyundai Inster electric car promises big things. You see, it measures in at just 3.8m long and around 1.6m wide – just slightly larger than the tiny VW Up. 

That’s not all that’s small about the Inster, either. Its starting price of £23,505 is similarly diminutive, putting it among the cheapest electric cars on sale today and in competition with the Citroën ë-C3, Fiat Grande Panda Electric and Renault 5.

Does that mean the Inster skimps on all the important things? Well it actually gets plenty of standard kit – including an EV heat pump – and you have a choice of two battery sizes, both offering decent electric ranges.

Hyundai Inster video review

Perhaps all of that sounds too good to be true, so how does the Hyundai Inster fare against rival electric cars? Let's find out…

There are two core versions of the Hyundai Inster – Standard Range and Long Range – and, as you'd expect, the distance it’ll go on a single charge depends on which one you pick. There’s also the Inster Cross, but that’s mechanically identical to the Long Range.

The Standard Range has a 39kWh (usable capacity) battery and gives you an official range of 203 miles. It's best suited to those who spend their time navigating winding city streets. The Long Range version, with its bigger 46kWh battery, can officially manage up to 229 miles.

For comparison, the Dacia Spring will manage just 149 miles officially, the Citroën ë-C3 200 miles, the Renault 5 193 or 252 miles and the Vauxhall Corsa Electric either 222 or 266 miles.

As well as a longer range, the Inster Long Range gets more power, with 113bhp against 95bhp for the Standard Range. We’ve yet to drive the Standard Range, but the Long Range has plenty of zip around town. It makes it much easier to take advantage of gaps in traffic than the slower Spring and Leapmotor T03.

The Inster Long Range can get up to motorway speeds easily enough but starts to feel less nippy above 60mph. It never actually struggles but you’ll find the Renault 5 has more oomph. In fact, the Long Range's 0-62mph sprint time of 10.6 seconds is slower than the entry-level R5’s time of 9.0 seconds, let alone the more powerful version’s 7.9 seconds.

The Standard Range’s 11.7-second official time suggests it will lend itself to low-speed bursts of power around town but could prove out of its depth on motorways and other fast roads.

The Inster excels around town. Being small and boxy it makes light work of tight car parks and narrow city streets. We never felt it was too big for urban driving, but if you want an even smaller electric car there's the Fiat 500e.

When the road gets twisty, the Inster proves a fine, neat-enough handler: its composure gives you confidence when cornering, but the steering could be more precise and the Inster never feels as agile as the R5.

Meanwhile, the ride is very good. The Inster’s fairly soft suspension means it’s comfy around town and on motorways. You’re very rarely thrown side-to-side in your seat, with the car staying remarkably upright over most undulations.

The Citroën ë-C3 is similarly well-cushioned yet less composed than the Inster while the R5 has a better ride than both. Other rivals – including the Dacia Spring and Vauxhall Corsa Electric – fall short.

"Given its small stature you might expect the Hyundai Inster to be unrefined, but it’s quite the opposite. I only started to notice wind and road noise above 50mph, and even then it wasn't bad." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

We have no complaints about the Hyundai Inster’s driving position. The seat lines you up perfectly with the steering wheel and pedals, and it’s relatively easy to get comfortable behind the wheel using the manual seat adjustment.

The driver gets a 10.3in digital driver's display that’s clear and much more impressive than the one in a Dacia Spring or entry-level Renault 5. Higher-spec R5 trims get a similar-sized display to the Inster.

The Inster's small size and large windows mean you have plenty of all-round visibility – something that’s helped further by the fact that you sit quite high up.

You can easily see all four corners so parking shouldn’t be an issue, but to make things even easier, every version gets rear parking sensors. The mid-spec 02 trim adds front parking sensors and a rear-view camera, while top-spec Cross adds a 360-degree surround-view camera.

Unlike in the Leapmotor T03, you get physical controls on the centre console for the air-conditioning, making it much easier to make changes while you're driving. The Citroën ë-C3 and R5 give you physical controls too.

Everything else in the Inster is controlled through the 10.3in infotainment touchscreen on the dashboard. It’s high up and easy to read, and the general quality of the display is pretty impressive.

The infotainment software itself is unfortunately not Hyundai’s latest and greatest, so it does feel a little dated and slow to respond to inputs. It’s also not as intuitive as the system in the R5.

However, the Inster has plenty of features, including DAB radio, Bluetooth, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring, and sat-nav.

The interior design looks pretty modern but it's dominated by hard, scratchy plastics. It's about on par with the Citroën ë-C3 and the Fiat Grande Panda is the same story, but at least the Panda is more colourful. The entry-level R5 is similarly scratchy but all other versions of the R5 feel plusher and more expensive than any Inster inside.

That includes the Cross, which gets grey cloth seats and lime-yellow accents that add a welcomed (but small) splash of colour.

"Thanks to its small size and big windows, not much is easier to park than the Hyundai Inster. I found that I seldom needed to use the parking aids while driving it." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

Given the Hyundai Inster’s size, you might expect this section to be over pretty quickly – surely it’s just all-round tiny? Well, surprisingly, that’s not the case.

Up front, two six-footers will have plenty of space, with enough head and leg room to get comfy. What’s more, the interior is wide enough to ensure they don't rub shoulders. There’s less space than you get in the larger MG4, around the same as in the Citroën ë-C3 and more than you get in the Dacia Spring. 

There’s more storage space than you might expect too, with the Inster getting two cupholders between the front seats, two large cubbies below the air-con controls, a shelf in front of the passenger seat and small door bins.

Rear space is quite generous, with plenty of head room and – if you go for at least 02 trim and slide the rear seats all the way back – a surprising amount of leg room. Entry-level 01 trim cars don't include sliding rear seats and are tighter on rear leg room.

No matter which version of the Inster you go for, you get only two back seats. They have plenty of shoulder room for two adults, but if you'll often have three in the back you’ll want to consider the Citroën ë-C3 and MG4.

The Inster's boot size depends on which version you go for. The Inster 01 has 280 litres of boot space – which is less than rival small electric cars – while the boot on 02 and Cross trim varies from 238 litres to 351, depending where you have the sliding back seats. That’s more than the BYD Dolphin and the ë-C3 but less than the 363 litres in the MG4.

For some extra space, every Inster comes with rear seats that split 50/50 and fold flat with the boot floor. If you go for 02 or Cross trim, the front seats can be folded down flat too.

"It’s interesting that you can fold all four of the Hyundai Inster's seats flat on 02 trim and above. In essence, you can turn the car into what I'd describe as a metal tent, which I'm sure has its uses." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

As a cash purchase, the entry-level Hyundai Inster Standard Range 01 will cost you less than the BYD Dolphin, Fiat 500e, MG4 or Vauxhall Corsa Electric.

It's starting price of £23,505 is slightly more than you'll pay for an entry-level Citroën ë-C3 and Renault 5, though, and quite a bit more than the very basic Dacia Spring and Leapmotor T03.

Predicted depreciation is much slower than for the Corsa Electric and slightly slower than for the Spring, but faster than for the ë-C3 and MG4. That should help keep your monthly payments down if you’re buying on PCP finance.

The Inster gets plenty of standard equipment regardless of which version you go for. Indeed, entry-level 01 trim includes 15in alloy wheels, single-zone climate control, automatic windscreen wipers, an EV heat pump and battery heater, keyless entry and start, and other kit.

The 02 trim – which is only available on the Inster Long Range, so pushes the price up to £26,755 – adds even more kit. That list includes 17in alloy wheels, heated front seats, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, a heated steering wheel, wireless phone-charging and sliding back seats. It brings the price close to that of an entry-level BYD Dolphin or MG4 but we think it’s worth the extra.

Top-spec Cross – which, again, is only available with the bigger-battery version – is designed to look more rugged and comes with a different alloy wheel design. It also adds a sunroof and extra safety features but is too expensive to be our pick of the range.

The Inster's maximum charging rates are 73kW for the Standard Range and 85kW for the Long Range. Both will go from 10-80% charge in about half an hour with a 150kW CCS public EV charger. Meanwhile, charging from 0-100% on an 11kW home EV charger will take around four hours for the Standard Range and four hours, 35 minutes for the Long Range.

The Inster was too new to feature in our 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey but Hyundai as a manufacturer performed pretty well, placing 10th out of the 31 included brands. That’s below Dacia and Citroën but above other rivals.

Better still, the Inster comes with a five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty and an eight-year, 100,000-mile battery warranty. That’s much better than the fairly standard three-year, 60,000-mile warranty you get with most rivals, including the Citroën ë-C3 and Dacia Spring.

The experts at Euro NCAP gave the Inster four stars out of five for safety, the same as the Renault 5. Standard safety equipment includes front, front side and curtain airbags, automatic emergency braking (AEB) that can recognise cars, pedestrians and bicycles, lane-keeping assist, lane-follow assist and a driver monitoring system.

The range-topping Cross model adds blind-spot monitoring and a more sophisticated AEB system that can intervene when you’re reversing or changing lane.

"Going through the list of standard equipment, I find it hard not to be impressed by how much kit Hyundai has packed into the Inster while still keeping the price down." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

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