Hyundai Inster review

It's a very small electric city car.  But don't let that mislead you. It wants to be bigger. 'City' sized cars – petrol or electric – tend to be pretty stripped out. Dashboard of takeaway containers. Tin-can refinement. Digital-detox equipment. Cramped.

The Inster is hard to categorise because it’s designed with charm, generously kitted out and surprisingly versatile.

Trouble is, that raises its prices dangerously close to faster, wider, more grown-up cars including the Renault 5, and Mini Cooper Electric, Fiat 500e and Peugeot e-208.

The Inster leverages the Koreans' electric expertise, acting very much like a trickled-down version of the Kona. You can have it with one of two powertrains. The base version has a 42kWh battery giving the motor 97bhp and a WLTP range of 203 miles. Assume 150-odd real-world, unless you're confined to suburban speeds. In which case, as with any EV, you'll be in with a chance of hitting the WLTP figure.

The longer-range (229 miles WLTP on diddy, 15-inch wheels; 223 miles on 17s) has a 49kWh battery that runs at a slightly higher voltage so can juice the motor to 115bhp.

Prices start at £23,495 for the small batteried one to £26,745 for the bigger capacity and higher equipment level. All of them have full driver assist and a heat pump.

Talk about the design.

Like the best small cars, the Inster is a cheery looker without toppling into cartoonish cuteness. The front circular running lights give it a distinctive, animated face. Hyundai has been liberal with its characteristic pixel lighting for the indicators and rear lights. Disciplined panelwork gives it a visual strength. You might be seeing a bit of Suzuki Ignis.

It's actually derived from a Korea-only petrol Hyundai called the Casper. The Casper is very much a city car; for the Inster they stretched the wheelbase but not the width. That's why the Inster seats four people not five.

Hyundai talks of it as a crossover. As Citroen does with the e-C3. Purleese. It's just a bit raised up, and has some perimeter plastic around the body. That cladding's largely ornamental, not useful: the door panels are still unprotected if anyone opened their car door or bounced a shopping trolley on you. By the way a slightly chunkier version called the Inster Cross is pending. But again, it's just 2WD.

And inside?

Let's start with the colours, because you just can't avoid them. The check seats are an uncontroversial and cheery way of lifting the mood. But the yellow, mustard and fawn scheme for the cabin plastics is going to split opinion. Sophisticated and chic to some observers, bilious and pukey to others.

But you can opt for black. People probably will. We've lost count of the number of cars available in their early days with a coloured dashboard option that soon gets withdrawn.

Another thing that occasionally gets invented then goes away: sliding rear seats. Which the upper-trim Inster 02 also has. The two seats back slide independently. Slide back and you've got what is for a small car an amazing amount of legroom. But then a tiny boot. At the other extreme you can fold them and the front passenger seat too. Handy if you're a solo double-bassist.

The Inster doesn't feel like a cheap car. The dash has two high-resolution screens and loads of physical switches. It's much the same setup that appears almost the whole way up Hyundai's range.

More details on the Inster's interface and accommodation in the Interior tab of this review.

How does it drive?

Comfortably. It's softly suspended and absorbs bumps with a well-oiled gait. Urban potholes and speed bumps won't give you any angst.

Of course this means it rolls a fair bit in corners, but as it's not too heavy you feel you can chuck it around. The small battery one is just 1,300kg (which is to say 1,300,000 Inster-grammes). But as the steering's rather numb it doesn't really want to play games. It wants you to relax.

Performance is also, well, relaxing. It absorbs more than 10 seconds in getting to 62mph. Still, the pedal calibration is fine for nipping briskly but smoothly away from city junctions when a gap appears.

If it's going to sell against the Renault 5, Fiat 500e and Mini, the Inster needs to look distinctive. And it passes that hurdle. Its design gives it a presence beyond its physical size, undermined only by the base version's tiny 15-inch wheels.

The cabin works well, blending grown-up, rational instruments and controls with cheerful upholstery. Even though it's small and can never carry five, the 02 version's sliding rear seats do improve versatility.

Hyundai's electric expertise is well-proven, so we'd expect reliability and efficiency to be pretty much a given.

So even though it sits oddly among the size classes and is much more expensive than other baby cars, don't get too hung up. It feels like something bigger.