Awwww! It’s The New Hyundai Inster
The tiny, cheap city car is a category thatâs under threat in Europe, as they provide ever-slimmer profit margins for manufacturers. One of the only brands keeping the faith is Hyundai with the little i10, and itâs just been joined by an ultra-cute electric sibling in the shape of the Hyundai Inster.
The Inster â that name, apparently, derives from the words âintimateâ and âinnovativeâ â is actually an all-electric version of a petrol car thatâs already been on sale in Korea for a few years, the Casper. Much like the eponymous ghost, itâs a very friendly-looking little thing and was developed around a sort of Korean equivalent of Japanâs kei car regulations, albeit slightly less restrictive.
Hyundai Inster – interior
While the Casper has a little 1.0-litre petrol engine, the Inster gets a single electric motor powering the front wheels, making 96bhp in standard form or 113bhp in the Long-Range version. That latter car gets an impressive projected range of 221 miles, and it even gets vehicle-to-load tech, meaning you can use it as a giant portable charger for pretty much any electrical device.
It maintains the petrol Casperâs âchunky 4×4 on a hot washâ looks, with those big, circular LED daytime running lights. It also transfers over the bold, blocky pixel-style LED lighting design found on the Ioniq 5 and 6.
Hyundai Inster – rear
On the inside, it has a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster, and an infotainment screen of the same size. There’s lots of recycled PET plastic, too, as well as materials extracted from sugar cane, while the high-gloss black stuff on the outside is made from old tyres. Neat.
The Inster will launch later in summer, with a rufty-tufty Cross version joining later. No word on pricing yet, but we’d expect it to be a chunk more than its likely biggest rival, the Dacia Spring â but then the Inster gets a lot more power and range. It also looks just as darn cute. Yes it does!
