2025 Hyundai Inster review

Inster? What’s an Inster? Do you mean Instagram? Hyundai’s latest electric vehicle (EV) is a style-focussed entry-level electric SUV that undercuts all its existing Ioniq range and even the Kona Electric in terms of size. Based on the combustion-powered Casper, which has been on sale in Korea for a few years now, the pint-sized Hyundai Inster is slightly longer but still measures in at only 3.8 metres long.

That makes it much smaller than a Venue. Competition is fierce at this end of the EV market, with plenty of rivals including the likes of the BYD Dolphin, GWM Ora and MG 4 hatchbacks, though the Inster is smaller than all of those. Similarly sized EV rivals with styling front of mind include the Fiat 500e and Mini Cooper Electric hatches.



WATCH: Jack Quick’s video walkaround of the 2025 Hyundai Inster Ahead of the Hyundai Inster’s local launch in February next year, we got a chance to drive a Korean-specification example called the Casper Electric, as part of its international media launch. How does it stack up? Read along to find out. Hyundai Australia hasn’t detailed the lineup, pricing or specifications of the Inster just yet.

The company has, however, confirmed it will offer a higher-riding Cross version in addition to the standard model. When the Inster launches locally, it’ll go up against stiff competition from the likes of the Chinese-made BYD Dolphin, GWM Ora and MG 4, as mentioned above. All of these electric hatches have sub-$40k starting prices.

To see how the Hyundai Inster stacks up against its rivals, check out our comparison tool The Inster has such a cutesy look and is absolutely tiny when you walk up to it. Once it’s on sale in Australia it’ll be among the smallest EVs available. One of the few EVs that’s smaller than it is the Fiat 500e.

Despite being so small, the Inster is still a pretty easy car to get in and out of. This is thanks in part to the slightly raised driving position. But its ride height, wheel-arch cladding and wagon-like body shape are really the only things ‘SUV’ about this Korean city-car.

Once you’re in, it feels like you’re stepping into the TARDIS. Its exterior dimensions suggest the Inster will be teensy inside but, thanks to the relatively long wheelbase, Hyundai has been able to eke out as much interior space as possible. Despite this, it still feels cozy up front due to the narrow width, but there’s still ample space for two to get comfortable.

The front seats are a faux bench with an armrest separating them. It’s rather Kia EV5-like in terms of design. Both are squishy yet comfortable enough for such a small car, though they lack a bit of lateral support.

As to be expected, the front seats are manually adjustable, but they slide and recline to suit people of many sizes. I wish there was a bit of adjustable lumbar support, however, as after a few hours on the road my lower back did start to ache. An interesting touch in Korean-spec examples is both heated and ventilated front seats.

It’s unclear what specs we’ll be getting in Australia at this stage, but they’re pretty nifty in hotter and cooler weather. Ahead of the driver is a steering wheel that’ll look and feel familiar if you’ve driven an Ioniq 5 or Ioniq 6. It feels soft and nice in the hand, and thankfully offers both tilt and telescoping adjustment.

Our tester also had steering wheel heating, which is a nice touch in such a small car. All the buttons on the steering wheel are easy to use and understand, though the glossy finishes on some of them were smudgy and gross even after a day. Behind the steering wheel is a digital instrument cluster that’s typical Hyundai.

It’s a 10.25-inch unit running the company’s older system, though it still has many views and a few customisable themes. But I do wish there were more views with the digital speedometer showing.

Moving across to the centre, the 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system is also running Hyundai’s older system. It’s not the end of the world though because it’s easy to navigate and you won’t get lost.

During our test drive in South Korea we found people use their native infotainment systems a lot more than smartphone mirroring. This is because a lot of cars offer connected satellite navigation systems with live traffic and routing. The Inster’s connected sat nav in South Korea is excellent.

It tells you when to turn, which lanes you need to be in, when speed cameras or average speed zones are coming up, and even advises you when you’re approaching a speed bump. It’s rather comprehensive. Speaking of smartphone mirroring, however, the Inster only has wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because it’s running on the older infotainment system and has satellite navigation.

We did do a brief to test to see how Apple CarPlay works and it’s as to be expected. Looking around the cabin, it’s good to see a physical climate control unit, since physical buttons are so much easier to use than having to dive into the touchscreen. Almost everywhere you look there are harder plastic surfaces, but this to be expected in such a small vehicle at the budget end of the price spectrum.

There are, however, soft panels on the side of the door armrests, which is a bizarre touch because the actual section of the armrest that your elbow touches is rock-hard. As I mentioned above, there’s a small centre armrest separating the two front seats. It’s rare for a small vehicle like this to get this kind of feature and I appreciated it a lot as it makes for a more relaxed driving experience.

Other amenities up front include two cupholders on the faux bench seat with a phone slot, a wireless phone charger under the climate control module, and an interior vehicle-to-load (V2L) port to charge devices or power appliances. Apart from the cupholders and phone slot, there isn’t a great deal of other storage up front. There’s an adequately sized glove box, as well as small door pockets that aren’t large enough fit a water bottle.

Speaking of the doors, Hyundai is offering a range of cool-looking door garnish accessories that allow you to personalise your car. It’s a little bit kitschy, but some may find it cute. Moving to the second row is where the Inster steps into its own.

On the outside and from previous experience with small city-cars, I went into this thinking there wouldn’t be much space at all. In reality, the Inster’s back seat area is incredibly generous and rather roomy. Thanks to the long wheelbase, the space on offer feels larger than that in an i30 Hatch.

A catch about the second row is there are only two seats, making the Inster strictly a four-seater. This may be a red flag for some potential buyers, although putting three people across the back would be way too squishy anyway. Like the front seats, the rear bench offers heaps of adjustment.

With a 50:50 split, the seats slide fore/aft up to 80cm and recline up to 28 degrees, allowing for more passenger comfort, or more boot space. At a leggy 182cm, I had plenty of leg and head room, though like many EVs my knees were up higher than I would like. The seat is also rather flat, so you might find yourself sliding into the middle or out towards the window in bends.

Slid all the way back and reclined fully, it doesn’t feel like you’re in a tiny car. Instead, it feels like it’s on par with the back seat of the considerably larger Kona. There are minimal amenities in the second row though, which is to be expected.

Examples include a singular USB-C port and tiny door pockets. Notable absences in the rear include air vents, a centre armrest, and even map pockets on the back of the front seats. To make up for this minimalist amenity, Hyundai is offering a range of accessories that can attach to the back of the front seats.

Examples include a tray table and umbrella holder. Around the back, the Inster has a manual tailgate that’s light to open and close. With the tailgate open, the boot space on offer is on the small side, but you have to remember this is a very compact car.

Depending on how you have the rear seats set up, there’s between 280 and 351 litres of boot space. The majority of this is under a false floor that is rather deep. A unique feature of the Inster is that all four seats can be folded completely flat, even the driver’s seat.

This means you can put a mattress in the car and sleep in it if you like. Other possibilities include folding the front passenger seat so you can stow longer items in the boot, or make it a footrest for a rear passenger. As to be expected, the Inster has a tyre repair kit only, so there’s no spare wheel of any kind.

To see how the Hyundai Inster stacks up against its rivals, check out our comparison tool The Hyundai Inster is produced with two electric motor and battery options. On test here is the Inster Long Range. To see how the Hyundai Inster stacks up against its rivals, check out our comparison tool It’s worth noting from the outset here that during this event we drove a Korean-specification Inster Long Range on a range of city streets and freeways on the outskirts of Seoul.

The Australian-spec Inster, on the other hand, will be based on the European version with slight tweaks to the suspension setup. This means the Korean-spec tester we drove is not fully indicative of what we’ll see when it launches locally early next year. To start up the Inster you need to press a button on the dash, which feels familiar if you’re coming from a combustion-powered vehicle.

Then you twist the gear selector on the steering column into drive or reverse. There were a couple of points during my drive when I almost twisted the wiper stalk instead of the gear selector as they’re pretty close. If you’re paying proper attention, however, they’re easy to distinguish.

Setting off, the Inster is a lot peppier than its mediocre outputs suggest. There’s plenty of oomph for everyday driving duties, and thankfully never quite enough to get the front wheels to spin. Acceleration is smooth and progressive from a standstill, which is nice and comfortable from a driver’s perspective.

There is a sport mode, but it doesn’t really make the Inster feel any faster. If you’re after more you’d better look elsewhere. Like all Hyundai EVs, the Inster comes with adjustable regenerative braking modes that can be cycled through via the paddle shifters behind the steering wheel.

This allows you to customise how much regenerative braking the car will offer before you need to apply the brakes. In its most aggressive mode, called i-Pedal, the Inster will offer total one-pedal driving, which is personally my favourite way to drive an EV because it feels more linear. It’s annoying, however, that you need to select this mode every time you drive the car.

You can tell this EV has been built for the city. It’s rather quiet around town inside the cabin and the suspension is supple over speed bumps. Like a small car should be, it also feels nimble and agile when navigating city streets or tight car parks.

Speaking of parking, the Inster comes with front and rear parking sensors, as well as a surround-view camera with decent (but not standout) quality. Something to keep in mind if you’re driving in i-Pedal mode is that it’ll disengage the moment you take the car out of drive. This means you’ll need to use the brake pedal when reverse parking.

Building up the speed, the Inster surprisingly didn’t feel out of its depth. It’s a surprisingly good highway tourer with minimal effort required. The measly electric motor still has enough punch to get up to highway speeds and maintain it.

Unlike a petrol-powered Picanto for example, which has a similar amount of power, the electric Inster doesn’t sound like it’s having its neck wrung out when accelerating hard. Sure, you can hear the electric motor whine a tad in the cabin when you floor it and at higher speeds, but this is pretty common and arguably a little fun. At higher speeds there’s also a bit more road noise, but you need to remember just how small this car is.

There’s only so much sound deadening material that Hyundai can add to an already small product. With our Korean-spec tester, the McPherson strut front suspension felt on the softer side on pristine Korean roads. It floated over certain roads and on harsher imperfections or bumps it took a movement or two to settle.

The rear torsion beam suspension setup, on the other hand, is a little more settled. As I’ve already mentioned, the Aussie-spec Inster will have a different suspension tune, so this Korean-market vehicle wasn’t reflective of what we’ll get. Despite being pretty good on the highway, there’s one area the Inster doesn’t succeed in, which is higher speed dynamic driving.

The little city-car does lean a bit in the bends and doesn’t really feel like it wants to be pushed. On the safety front, the Inster is pretty well fully loaded. The adaptive cruise system is fantastic at judging when to brake when a car ahead does, although it can sometimes jerk the brakes on when a car cuts into your lane.

As standard, there’s Highway Driving 1.5, which combines adaptive cruise control and lane centring. It’s pretty good for the most part and takes the fatigue out of driving long distances on the highway.

However, the system is best suited for clearly marked highways and freeways as it can be a little too hands-on around town or when the bends get a little sharper. The system also occasionally pinballed the car slightly in its lane, even on straight sections of road, which is annoying. Lastly, the Inster comes with bright projector LED headlights, which is great for travelling on dimly lit roads at night.

Hyundai Australia hasn’t confirmed its local Inster lineup or specifications yet, though we do know we’ll receive Euro-spec vehicles, and Hyundai has detailed what is available globally. Hyundai Inster highlights: Hyundai Australia has confirmed the Inster will be offered in a total of nine exterior paint finishes. The following exterior paint finishes are available: Interior trim choices include black cloth, as well as two-tone Khaki Brown and Newtro Beige cloth.

Faux leather options are available in Korea. To see how the Hyundai Inster stacks up against its rivals, check out our comparison tool The Hyundai Inster hasn’t been tested by Euro NCAP or ANCAP just yet. Standard safety equipment includes: The Hyundai Inster will likely be covered by the Korean brand’s five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty in Australia.

Hyundai Australia hasn’t detailed logbook servicing intervals or pricing yet. To see how the Hyundai Inster stacks up against its rivals, check out our comparison tool I really want to see the Hyundai Inster do well in Australia, but obviously its success will largely depend on pricing. The cheaper end of Australia’s electric car market is incredibly competitive, with a number of Chinese carmakers currently in a pricing war to claim the title of nation’s cheapest EV.

Hyundai has previously said it doesn’t want to engage in that with the Inster, but what it has on its hands here is a direct rival to these cars. With an adequate electric motor output, small-ish battery capacity and modest range claim, the Inster is a through-and-through city-car, but it doesn’t feel out of its element out on the open road like some smaller cars can. Sure, its interior only offers four seats but, given there’s so much adjustability for each seat, even larger and taller folk will likely be able to get comfortable, even in the second row.

It’s a little frustrating that, despite the Inster being a brand-new model, it’s running older infotainment tech that only offers wired smartphone mirroring, but there’s only so much a carmaker can do when it employs an existing model as a base. I’m keen to see how Australians will take to the Inster, especially given its cutesy styling and diminutive exterior dimensions. Personally, I also can’t wait to park it next to a huge pickup to see the size difference.

Something else I eagerly await, apart from pricing, is to experience the Australian suspension tune on harsher local roads. So next February can’t come soon enough, let alone the Inster Cross that will follow. Interested in buying a Hyundai Inster? Get in touch with one of CarExpert’s trusted dealers here MORE: Everything Hyundai Inster.