• Plenty of room for four occupants
• Sliding rear seats offer more boot space  
• All the seats can fold flat

How much space is there?

There’s more space than those small exterior dimensions may suggest. Open the doors and you’re greeted by a vast cabin that’s loaded with smart space-maximising touches. And when we say vast, we mean it. It may be Hyundai’s entry-level EV, but the Hyundai Inster offers its driver and three passengers almost excellent levels of lounging room.

The front seats work together to create a bench, while the two 50:50 split rear seats individually slide back and forth on runners – on 02 and Cross models – which means class-leading legroom is possible when needed at the expense of boot space. The completely flat floors on offer also ensures there’s plenty of leg and foot space.

The strict four-seat nature of the Inster may prove off-putting when rivals often offer space for five, but usually that middle-rear seat is compromised and best reserved for shorter trips anyway. By choosing to offer room for only two in the rear, Hyundai has created class-leading space for people.

Hyundai Inster boot space and storage

On first inspection the boot space looks to be underwhelming at just 238 litres. While it’s a useful space with no loading lip and extra space below a false floor that’s prime storage for charging cables, it’s a lot smaller than the boots you’d find in the Renault 5 E-tech or Fiat Grande Panda.

However, spot the limp fabric parcel shelf that clips onto the rear seats, and you might work out the Inster has a nifty trick to make the most of its modest proportions. Pull the rear seats forward (on 02 and Cross models) to sacrifice some rear legroom and you’ll reach 351-litres of boot space, just 10 litres shy of a Grande Panda.  

That climbs to 1,059 litres when the rear seats are folded down, and if you need an impromptu overnight mini campervan, all four fold flat and form the perfect base for an air bed.

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Cabin storage is a mixed bag, with clever solutions nestled in the dashboard but narrow door pocket storage. The three integrated shelves (with wireless phone charger in one) and neat hook for storing a shopping bag or handbag will prove useful.

Sadly, the fancy folding any sliding seats don’t quite make up for the lack of a frunk – storage space under the bonnet.

Is it easy to park?

Parking is right up the Intser’s street, no matter how narrow said street may be. It’s a thin car, the wheels are pushed to the four corners, visibility is excellent, and the bonnet is short which makes road positioning easy to gauge. Even without any technical assistance, an Inster has good foundations to make parking a doddle.

Every Inster gets rear parking sensors and a reversing camera, but you’ll need to upgrade to a 02 or Cross to get parking sensors added to the front, and only the Cross offers surround view monitor (SVM) – a top-down view of the car to aid with parking in tight spots.

Safety

• The Inster hasn’t been crash tested yet
• Plenty of standard safety kit
• Driver-assistance system’s alarms can be intrusive

The Hyundai Inster hasn’t been crash-tested by Euro NCAP but achieved an underwhelming three stars (out of five) when tested by Korea-NCAP.  It’ll have a job to match the five stars achieved by the MINI Electric, and even the four stars awarded to the Renault 4 E-Tech and 5 E-Tech.

This being a Hyundai, it will be comprehensively kitted out with safety and driver assistance features, filtered down from the Ioniq range. Every Inster features adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, forward collision avoidance assist and seven airbags as standard. The range-topping Cross is the only way to get blind spot monitoring, blind spot collision avoidance and reversing collision avoidance assist.

The onboard safety tech can a little overzealous, the driver attention bong played up a few times while performing shoulder checks. The chimes can at least be silenced via the infotainment system.