I’ve been fascinated with the Hyundai Inster EV ever since it was called the Casper and unveiled in Korea a couple of years back. It’s a friendly, yet utilitarian-looking thing that’s slightly bigger than a kei car and seemingly designed for usability first. This meant that the moment a test car became available nearby, I had to spring for the keys. While this car isn’t yet planned for the United States, it’s the kind of small-yet-capable EV some of you keep saying you want. I also think this one could be priced just affordably enough to be interesting to a certain subset of buyers.
Hyundai’s just started to roll the Insters out at Finnish dealerships, where it must do battle with a bunch of other small sub-30k-euro EV hatchbacks that seem to be hitting the market near simultaneously. For someone considering to lease or buy a commuter car or a second car in this price range, there’s currently the choice of the new Fiat (Grande) Panda, the Renault R5 E-Tech, the Citroën ë-C3 and its slightly stretched crossover sibling the Opel Frontera, and the Inster, which is available with a choice of two slightly different powertrains.
The available battery packs are 42kWh and 49kWh, which aren’t spaced that far apart, and power output is 97hp and 115hp, respectively. Even the “fully loaded” cars slot in under 30k euro in this country, but the basic 42kWh, 26k euro version is still well equipped, sadly missing out on V2L charging.
This bone white Inster is a dealership demo from the next town over, handily available as I took my Peugeot EV to get a tire change next door. I’ve had a Peugeot e-2008 for a couple of years now as a family car, and thanks to a very dynamic marketing campaign, they were briefly available for a similar amount of money as the Inster and its competitors now are.
What The Little Inster Is Like
The Inster is at least a size smaller than my car, but it’s certainly not too tight if you come in from a Peugeot e-208, the hatchback sibling of my longer crossover. At 12.5 feet long and just 5.25 feet wide, it’s a little bigger than a Kei car and smaller than an ordinary commuter hatch. In Korea, the Casper is available with a one-liter, three-cylinder gasoline engine, but no ICE-powered versions are exported to Europe.
Behind the wheel, the Inster feels familiar to anyone who’s driven an Ioniq 5 or a Kona recently, just a lot narrower. It’s got the same gauge graphics as other Hyundais, a similar center display, too, and drive direction is engaged from a similar steering column twist knob as on the Ioniq 5. To save space, the cabin does away with the center console and armrest: it’s just a split bench seat with cupholders formed in the middle.
The HVAC controls and associated buttons are all housed in an android face-shaped pod that almost looks like an aftermarket A/C unit, especially in these press shots with the lightly colored interior. The interior is designed to look special enough not to be mistaken for a car you’d borrow from a car-sharing service like Car2Go, something the Renault Zoe couldn’t really avoid, especially in its earliest form.
As a six-foot tall driver, I had the front seat back enough to sit slightly behind the B-pillar, but it’s not impossible to sit “behind yourself” with the seat adjusted to your needs if you’re me: the Inster EV in European specification has a longer wheelbase than the Korean-market, ICE powered Casper. This is also why this otherwise somewhat Fiat Panda Mk2-sized car is noticeably longer than the Fiat. At 3000 lbs, it’s also a lot heavier.
The doors open wide and the rear seat is easy to access, something to consider if the Inster would need to do family car duty instead of hauling just a laptop bag around. A few weeks back at the showroom, I happened to try the rear seat for size at the same time as a burly guy, and accommodation was passable, especially for a car of this class. The trunk isn’t as big, as the car seems to end right after the rear tires, but I could probably fold our kid’s buggy in there, and in the fully loaded “IN” spec car you can slide and adjust the rear seat to create more space where needed.
How It Drives
At least with the more powerful 49kWh/115hp drivetrain, the Inster has decent pickup thanks to the instant electric torque we’ve come to expect. There are four drive modes, from Normal to Eco and Sport and Snow, and with a quick sampling, the Eco mode retains enough oomph to not make the Inster feel neutered. The Sport mode makes throttle response more eager, but it’s down to the driver to decide which suits their driving style the best.
I did a short stint on the open road, which was particularly windy today, and it’s probably down to the low center of gravity and 3000-pound weight that the tall and narrow Inster didn’t sway as much in crosswinds as I expected, but felt sure-footed. Compared to my well-insulated Peugeot, it was louder at 55mph, but that’s a characteristic I’ve noticed with my previous Korean EVs. I would even expect the Inster to be quieter than the old-shape Kona I ran for a few years, as the road noise was mostly from the wind instead of the tire roar typical to the Kona.
Given it’s designed for an urban environment first and foremost, I also needed to do a quick detour through town. On cobblestones, the Inster’s 15-inch tires seemed to find enough faults to transmit some to my backbone, but no squeaks emerged. Visibility and maneuverability in town is great, helped by the way the bulky front corners are visible from the driver seat. A backup camera is standard to help with parking, but blind spot and rear cross traffic alerts are a feature reserved for the higher-spec cars.
Charging speed and range are some of the things any EV buyer pays attention to, and with a short drive with a dealership demo that had a decently topped up battery, I elected not to try out the Inster’s charging capabilities. Neither of the available versions, the 42kWh or the 49kWh, are particularly fast at charging, as Hyundai mentions the smaller one tops out at 73kW and the larger one at 85kW when plugged in at a CCS station.
Small enough batteries help keep charging stops short, claimed 4+mi/kWh average consumption (WLTP) keeps them farther apart. The range is mentioned to be as much as 200 miles for the smaller and 230 miles for the larger battery, with 290/320 miles imaginable in “City WLTP” driving.
What Would This Cost In The United States?
Partially due to changing EU regulations for both safety and emissions, the sub-20k small ICE hatch class is all but extinct in Europe, which shows when you consider how well the Dacia Sandero is selling; you can still buy an outgoing old-shape Fiat Panda in Germany for less than $15k, too. The Inster and its competitors cost a cool $10k more than one would have paid for a supermini a decade ago, but inflation’s also taken its toll: a $27k car in today’s money would have cost closer to $20k a decade ago.
Small EVs were only really starting to come out back then, starting with the Nissan Leaf, and those used to cost a lot more than far more capable small cars do today. Were Hyundai to export the Inster to the States, I could see it costing $25k nicely equipped, which is $10k less than the Kia Soul EV cost new a couple of years back. That’s a lot of money when you consider you could get a larger Chevy Trax for the same amount, but this is clearly targeted at someone who wants an urban or near-urban EV. Currently, there’s nothing like this for sale in the United States. The closest is the new electric Fiat 500, which costs about $35,000.
Like the Grande Panda and the Renault 5 E-Tech, the Inster relies heavily on being a desirable object, something one would buy simply because they like the way it looks. But thanks to its real-world design, decent EV tech, and that important wheelbase stretch, the Inster is also credible as an only car. Also, it comes in colors other than appliance white.
Photos: Antti Kautonen as well as the manufacturer / Thanks to Hyundai Automaa Kokkola for the keys
I love the idea of the Inster.
I just wish the vehicle had been designed by one team rather than one in Seoul, Korea and another in Irvine, CA and the results welded together at the B post.
And if you know anything about actually driving in cities: Cars need bumpers.
Thank you for the mini-review! This is exactly the sort of car I keep my eye on, in a category of “potential next vehicle.” It has that nice mix of small, practical, and not too expensive that I’m looking for.
I’ve been driving a Hyundai Venue (2020, 6-speed manual) since I bought it new five years ago. It’s a great, small car that was pleasantly cheap when I bought it, and I intend to drive it until it’s not drivable anymore. I’m hoping that, by the time I’m actively considering my next car, an Inster EV and similar cars will also be options here in the United States.
Hi LSM!
I was almost living in fear that I might be the only person here who even knew that there was a manual venue, let alone drove one… and here you are, with the fine sense to actually buy one! I test drove one when I was helping my sister shop for her first new car some years ago (we also drove an automatic Venue, since my sister still doesn’t drive manual). I forget the exact price of the Venue back then (might have been the first year it was out, or maybe the second?) but I seem to recall a price of comfortably under $20K for a SE version. Somehow, Hyundai has managed to keep the price reasonable since a 2025 Venue starts at $20,200. …but Ford found it necessary to jack up the base MSRP for a Maverick by the better part of five grand? The management of Ford can bite me before I ever consider one of their products again!
I was really pleasantly surprised by the Venue: it’s not gorgeous, but it’s chonky shape made the most of what interior space there is, the dash bits were decent, and it drove fine… even a bit better than fine with the interaction of the manual transmission. Of course it’s not fast (nor is it meant to be) but the 1.6 4-cylinder Hyundai chose will probably outlive most of the 3-cylinder engines Ford used in it’s small cars (before it decided to stop making small cars completely). Room in the hatch wasn’t epic, but serviceable for anyone who doesn’t try to drag home major appliances and/or piles of building materials on the regular (which excludes me). The roof rails even added a bit of panache.;-) Plus, they had this upper trim color/edition maybe called denim? It was a nice blue metallic with a white roof and I STILL think it looks pretty sharp when I see them around. And see Venues around on the streets of SoCal I do, more often than I ever expected… the first couple of years I almost never saw any, but then they just started popping up everywhere… I guess the temptation of getting a decent small practical car at a reasonable price just became too much and folks started buying them. I don’t know much about the 1.6 liter engine, and I know Hyundai/Kia had some issues with their GDI powerplants a few years back, but that’d be the only thing I’d feel a need to research should a nice manual denim Venue ever cross my path available to buy.
Sadly, Hyundai doesn’t see fit to offer the Venue anymore with a manual transmission: it’s just the CVT auto or nothing now. 🙁 Of course I understand their logic since I’m sure the manual take rate was miniscule, but it still makes me sad.
BTW: my sister and I test drove a LOT of cars… too many to recall atm. The other stand-out though was the Scion Ia (maybe it had become Toyota branded right around that time, since Toyota was shutting the Scion brand down?) which is of course actually a Mazda 2 one generation newer than we ever got here in the states from Mazda itself. I still remember it being surprisingly decent to drive, with good dynamics (not such a surprise once you learn that Mazda built it).
Really, for whatever reason (a chemical imbalance maybe?) it actually makes me a bit happy over my morning coffee and bagel (shared with the dog) to read that you bought and like your manual Venue.