Awwww! It's The New Hyundai Inster

The tiny, cheap city car is a category that’s 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 it’s just been joined by an ultra-cute electric sibling in the shape of the Hyundai Inster.

The Inster – that name, apparently, derives from the words ‘intimate’ and ‘innovative’ – is actually an all-electric version of a petrol car that’s already been on sale in Korea for a few years, the Casper. Much like the eponymous ghost, it’s a very friendly-looking little thing and was developed around a sort of Korean equivalent of Japan’s kei car regulations, albeit slightly less restrictive.

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 Casper’s ‘chunky 4x4 on a hot wash’ 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.

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 – but then the Inster gets a lot more power and range. It also looks just as darn cute. Yes it does!