- The Hyundai Inster gets a positive nod from Korean car reviewers.
- They like the way it looks, the way it drives and its clever feature-packed interior.
- It's better than its gas-powered sibling, the Hyundai Casper.
Hyundai’s smallest electric offering in Europe is the characterful Inster, whose cutesy pixel-themed styling will put a smile on your face. It’s the all-electric version of the Casper city car, which is also available with a 1.0-liter, three-cylinder gas engine in Korea, but it’s a much better car in EV form.
Korean car reviewers recently posted their impressions of driving the Hyundai Inster (known locally as the Casper Electric), and they were all impressed by it. Chris Norlund took a close look at its exterior and interior, then drove it around Busan, Korea. He spotted some cool features, such as heated and cooled front seats—quite an unusual luxury for such a tiny runabout. The car has mood lighting, too, which you rarely see in something this small.
All the seats fold flat to turn into a bed-like area where you could theoretically sleep, although you probably need some kind of mattress topper to make it feel comfy. The two rear seats also slide forward and back individually, which adds an extra layer of practicality to a petit vehicle that barely exceeds 150 inches in total length.
Even though the Inster has a 10.25-inch infotainment screen atop the dash, it also has physical controls for pretty much everything, which is quite refreshing to see in an age when manufacturers seem to be allergic to buttons and want to cram everything into menus in the infotainment.
The car also has a very good around-view camera system that even shows a 3D representation of the car, and you can rotate the perspective around it to see any potential obstacles. The only major feature it lacks is a head-up display, but the Hyundai-Kia group only puts HUDs in vehicles starting one size class higher, like the EV3.
The Inster made the reviewer from CarSceneKorea feel happy behind the wheel, which is what you want in a small city vehicle. But it's a rare attribute for a $25,000 car, which makes the little Hyundai pretty special. This second review goes more into how the car drives and the technical side. It shows the i-Pedal one-pedal driving mode in action, too.
Driving the Inster is a much more pleasant experience than driving the gas-powered Casper, reviewers say. The extra weight of the battery is well supported by a solidly tuned suspension, making the car feel more substantial and surefooted. The reviewer also notes the car’s excellent average efficiency, which is over 4 miles/kWh when driven in the city and without much consideration for driving economically—he even does a couple of acceleration runs in the video.
