Hyundai Inster Review 2025

After a seemingly never-ending succession of premium electric SUVs, it's finally time for small, relatively affordable city cars that shirk petrol and diesel power to shine. Recently, we've had the likes of the Citroen e-C3, Fiat Grande Panda Electric and Dacia Spring land, and now, it's the turn of the Hyundai Inster. Is there substance behind its cutesy looks? Find out with our full Hyundai Inster review.

It might have only recently arrived in the UK but the Hyundai Inster isn't as new as you might think. It first emerged in overseas markets back in 2021 as the shorter, narrower Hyundai Casper. Before you ask, no, it has nothing to do with the friendly ghost of the same name — it's related to a skateboarding trick, apparently. 

A battery-powered version of the city car was revealed in 2024 and while it's called Casper Electric in its native South Korea, here, it's the Inster. It's the only aspect of the car we particularly dislike. 

It could be rubbish in most areas — it definitely isn't, as we'll explain — and still win you over simply with its adorable looks. Its dimensions are actually partly down to legislation, with the original Casper complying with South Korea's slightly larger equivalent of Japan's kei car rules that give tax breaks for cars under 3600mm long and 1600mm in width.

The Inster is actually 225mm longer than the Casper and 10mm wider, but it remains a tall, narrow and short car compared with rivals such as the Citroen e-C3. Yet within its small footprint it packs plenty of practicality thanks to the availability of sliding and reclining rear seats, plus seats that fold fully flat in the front. 

There are two battery sizes available, with the larger 49kWh Long Range version fitted with a more powerful motor, but neither version is fast. The Inster is about providing efficient, fun urban transport that can easily handle the odd trip out of town. On that front, it does very well.

Its ride and handling balance could do with further work and it's a shame that the entry-level 01 version does without the impressively flexible seating, effectively making the Inster a more expensive proposition than we might have hoped in the preferred spec. 

Generally the Hyundai Inster it's an impressive little EV. Let's hope for more cars like this in the coming years.

Around town the Hyundai Inster is easy and pleasant to drive, with light, reasonably quick steering. Speed bumps and potholes are handled without the little Hyundai unduly crashing around. 

Get it out on the open road, and the Inster is less impressive. The ride never truly settles down, constantly jiggling about even over what look like smooth surfaces. The suspension just doesn't soak up undulations as well as we'd like. 

Don't think this means it's quite stiff in its set-up, therefore will corner flatly, because there are noticeable amounts of body roll. There's plenty of traction although our test car was fitted with grippy Michelin Pilot Sport 5 tyres. Most Insters sold are likely to be fitted with less fancy Nexens.

It's also at cruising speeds that you'll notice the Inster transmits quite a bit of wind noise into the cabin. That tall windscreen doesn't help matters.

There's a choice of two power levels for the Hyundai Inster, your choice of also affects the size of the battery fitted. Both versions have their electric motors located under the bonnet and drive the front wheels through a single-speed transmission.

Neither version is especially pokey, with 97PS available with the Standard Range battery, while the Long Range alternative manages 115PS — both develop 147Nm of torque. Acceleration times for the 0-62mph benchmark are 11.7 seconds for the 97PS motor and 10.6 seconds with the 115PS version.

These don't sound especially thrilling but how briskly the Inster gets to 30mph is impressive and more relevant considering the car's main intended use. Hyundai doesn't provide specific figures for this but the 115PS Inster gets up to urban speeds swiftly, albeit with a bit of a pause after putting your foot down. The throttle is slightly more responsive in Sport mode, although it remains on the leisurely side.

Above 30mph, progress noticeably slows but getting the car up to the national speed limit isn't much of a chore.

At the time of writing, the Hyundai Inster hadn't been crash-tested by Euro NCAP.

Standard-fit safety gear includes seven airbags, forward collision avoidance — we found this to be over-sensitive in terms of the warnings it gives you — plus lane-keeping assistance, blind-spot monitoring and traffic sign recognition.

The Hyundai Inster has a longer wheelbase than many of its rivals — 40mm more between the front and rear wheels than the Citroen e-C3, for instance — which makes for a roomy cabin. The rear seats on higher grade Insters can individually slide to vary the amount of legroom available and with both pushed as far fowards as possible, the boot space grows from a modest 238 litres to an impressive 351 litres.

You are sacrificing a lot of legroom to get the latter figure but you're left with enough to allow smaller kids to still sit in the rear without complaining about being cramped. Fold the 50/50 split reclining rear bench down and the total capacity goes up to 1059 litres. 

That's not the whole story. Unusually, the front seat backs can fully fold forwards. So, you could flip both and sit in the back for that 'lounge experience' Hyundai's marketing blurb likes to talk about. In truth, it could be appealing while you're waiting for a public charging session to finish, or just flip the passenger seat to make it easier to carry something long inside — a surfboard, perhaps, or we reckon a bike with one wheel removed should also fit fairly easily. 

Unfortunately, the entry-level Hyundai Inster 01 does without both the clever rear seats and the folding front ones. That means the boot space is fixed at 280 litres. With that in mind, we think the cheapest Insters are best avoided.

Whichever version of the Inster you're considering, remember that it's strictly a four-seater with no option for a central rear seatbelt to carry a fifth passenger.

Keeping with the atypical theme, although they are two separate units, the two front seats meet in the middle, effectively creating one bench seat that spans the front of the car. Because there isn't a centre console between them, it's easy to scoot from one side to the other, should the need ever arise. Perfect for those times you find you've parked too close to a wall in a multi-storey car park. 

The cabin feels very spacious despite being narrower than most, helped by its very tall ceiling. As well as giving an abundance of headroom even for those over six feet, this makes for a tall windscreen and windows, further helping that feeling of airiness. 

Although everything's finished just fine and put together without any rough edges, don't expect an abundance of upmarket-feeling materials inside the Hyundai Inster. The interior looks good at a glance but quite a lot of the surfaces feel cheap, particularly those cladding the passenger side of the dashboard. The door trims aren't all that fancy, either. 

Then again, the Inster doesn't feel anything like as cheap inside the as the Citroen e-C3 and it's not like you're paying masses more, so we'll call that a marginal win for the Hyundai. 

The Hyundai Inster's 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system isn't the flashiest, with average-looking graphics and a fairly subdued colour scheme. It gets on with the job just fine without frustrating the driver though, with a logical menu system and an acceptable level of responsiveness to touch. And yes, we very much appreciate not having to use it to change the climate control settings. 

Connecting devices is easy thanks to the presence of wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay but if you do need to connect a phone to charge it, there are two USB-C ports in the front plus a further one in the rear of 02 and Cross models, joined by a 12-volt power socket. With an optional adapter, domestic appliances can be powered via the Inster's external charge port thanks to vehicle-to-load capability. 

The sound system was decent enough in the 02-trimmed car we tested, which gets extra speakers over the 01.

The £23,505 starting point gets you into a Hyundai Inster 01 with the smaller 42kWh Standard Range battery, while the 49kWh Long Range battery ups this to £25,055. Both the 02 and rugged-looking Inster Cross versions only come with the bigger battery and are priced at £26,755 and £28,755 respectively (prices correct as of May 2025).

That sounds like a lot when Hyundai's own petrol-powered i10 costs from £16,600 but compare the Inster with the Citroen e-C3's £22,095 starting figure and it seems more reasonable. There is a smaller-battery version of the e-C3 on the way which will undercut the Inster further. Meanwhile, also coming from the massive Stellantis portfolio of brands is the related Fiat Grande Panda Electric, which is £20,975. 

Regardless, we'd say the Inster is worth the extra. While not hugely premium inside it doesn't have that same 'built down to a price' feel of the Stellantis models. 

You could spend even less than any of these on a Dacia Spring but that's not something we'd recommend doing. The Spring is poor to drive, feels dated and has a woeful Euro NCAP score. The similarly priced Leapmotor T03 is also flawed.

Gone are the days when you could dodge paying Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) by getting an EV. They're no longer exempt, so you'll have to pay the same £195 annual fee from year two of ownership onwards 

The Benefit in Kind (BiK) rate has gone up for EVs for 2025/26 but only from 2% to 3%, so the Hyundai Inster remains cheap to run as a company car. 

Hyundai Inster: Range and charging

We drove the Inster unsympathetically, mostly on rural, national speed limit roads, yet still averaged 3.8mi/kWh. Stick more to the urban driving the Inster is made for and you'll be well above 4.0mi/kWh, making the Hyundai very cheap to run if you're able to charge at home and can get on an electricity tariff with lower overnight rates. 

According to the WLTP Combined cycle test, driving range for the Hyundai Inster 01 42kWh Standard Range is 203 miles, extending to 229 miles sticking with the same trim but with the 49kWh Long Range battery. The 02 and Cross versions only come with the Long Range option, providing both with a 223-mile range. 

Using a 7.4kW domestic wallbox, the Standard Range battery takes 6 hours 05 minutes to jump from a 10% to 100% charge level, with the Longer range version needing an extra 39 minutes for the same level of replenishment.

A 10%-80% DC rapid recharge using a public facility takes 30 minutes for both battery sizes, although note the on-board charger flow rates are different — 73kW for the Standard Range and 85kW for the Long Range.

There are three different trim levels available for the Hyundai Inster — 01, 02 and Cross.

Standard equipment for the Hyundai Inster 01 includes:

• Battery heat pump
• Cruise control
• Keyless entry and start
• 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system
• Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
• Rear parking sensors
• Leather steering wheel
• 15-inch alloy wheels
• Blind-spot monitoring
• Lane-keeping assistance
• Traffic sign recognition
• Electrically adjustable, folding and heated door mirrors
• Digital instrument cluster

Upgrade to the Hyundai Inster 02 to add:

• Sliding and reclining rear seats
• Heated steering wheel
• Folding front seats
• Rear LED lights
• Rear spoiler
• Automatically dimming rear-view mirror
• 17-inch alloy wheels

For a chunkier, SUV-themed appearance you'll need the Hyundai Inster Cross which adds:

• Cross-specific bumper and side sill designs
• Electric sunroof
• Cross-specific 17-inch alloy wheels
• Skid plate