Hyundai Inster vs MG Im6

What's the difference?

The target market for the Inster isn't huge, and Hyundai knows it won't be a runaway best-seller for the brand. But those in the market for a bite-sized EV will find the Inster feels bigger, and drives better, than they might expect.

A super solid first outing from the IM brand. Don't let the pricing fool you, there is still bang for buck on offer in the IM6 Performance, even if it at times feels a bit too digital for my tastes.

The words small but perfectly formed appear here, with Hyundai’s insistence on not having a traditional range-wide design identity allowing them the freedom to create something unique and pretty funky here — though I do see some shades of Suzuki Ignis in the side profile.

It does look fun though, right? With the selfie ring-light-style headlights, Tetris-style rear lights, those swollen guards and the funky alloys.

And you can dial up further with the Cross variant, which gets a tougher, more squared-off look front and back - even if you’re more chance of meeting a bunyip than an Inster on your favourite off-road track.

Inside, the cuteness continues, though some of the scratchy cabin materials definitely point to the entry-level nature of the Inster.

Still, the seat materials, both the cloth and the leather, are lovely and thoughtfully coloured, and the twin screen setup is nice, too. I love the inclusion of a host of physical buttons that control the climate, stereo and the nav.

I feel almost mean saying this, because there will be plenty of people who like the way the IM6 looks, and I don’t want to rain on their parade. But… I’m not one of them.

It reminds me a bit of the pre-facelift Tesla Model Y, in that it’s largely feature-less and a bit blobby, and there’s not a sharp angle anywhere to be found on the thing. Premium to me means powerful and assured — picture just about any Audi — whereas I just find this a bit bland and soft.

Anyway, I do like the big alloys, the insulated glass roof and the light treatment front and rear.

And I like the cabin. The seats aren’t leather, but they’re super thick and comfortable, and there is a genuinely premium air in the cabin, helped by the acreage of screens and the quality elements, like the little door panels.

The doors unlatch electrically, matching the pop-out door handles outside, but they can be a bit fidgety. Someone from MG told me how they worked (you kind of cover the handle and let the door come to you) but I watched everyone else who tried to open them struggle. If you're at the point where you have to explain how a door handle works, you might have over-egged the pudding.

The second screen below the main one acts a bit like a mobile phone. You can alter your home screen widgets and access the main menu, even as Apple CarPlay is synched at the top. You’ll get used to it, I’m sure, but I found it to be a bit fidgety.

Actually it reminds me a little bit of the Lexus trackpad, or whatever that hateful system was called, where you controlled the main screen via a little mousepad thing, though happily it’s nowhere near as annoying as that was.

The Inster stretches 3825mm long, 1610mm wide and 1575mm tall, but it rides on a 2580mm wheelbase – the later being bigger than the Hyundai Venue, and almost as big as the Kona.

It has allowed Hyundai to stretch the legroom options in the backseat, which actually gives you more space than the two bigger SUVs mentioned above, helped massively by the fact the Inster's rear pew is on rails, allowing you to slide it right back, and that it reclines a fair way, too.

I'm 175cm and I found I had more than enough leg and headroom, and with the backseat in full La-Z-Boy mode, I could sit back and relax, even on a longer journey.

It's a good thing it's four seats only, though. While the Inster feels longer than it is, it doesn't feel any wider, and even in the front seat you can feel like you're in economy class when you have a passenger on board, with both of you rubbing elbows on the central armrest.

Clever storage abounds though, with hidey-holes, handbag hooks and more dotted throughout the cabin. Opt for the roof box – and wear the efficiency penalty – and you can pop another 75kg worth of gear on the roof.

Also cool is the fact the backseats fold completely flat in the entry-level Inster, upping the storage possibilities. And in the top-spec Cross, the front seats fold down, too, allowing for fairly long items to be stowed. Though why you would need the driver's seat to fold flat is a bit of a mystery, unless you're looking to turn your Inster into an immovable storage container.

Apparently in Korea you can option a mattress that slides over all four seats, but I can't see that taking off here.

The official storage numbers are 280L and 1059L, and the small boot is helped along a little by underfloor storage where you can pop your charging stuff.

The IM6 measures 4904mm long, 1988mm wide and 1669mm tall, and it rides on a 2950mm wheelbase, with IM describing it as a "mid-large SUV", though I expect it will be classed as a medium SUV Australia.

That said, ICE and EV mid-size electric SUVs are not cut from the same cloth, with the latter making use of a flat floor to maximise space. And so it is with the IM6, where backseat room is pretty damn impressive. I’m 175cm, and I had no problem at all with legroom or headroom, plus the same plush seats from up there are in the back, too.

There are also air vents but no temperature controls, and while there are USB ports, there is no regular household-style plug in the cabin. 

The glass in the windows is laminated, while the roof is double glazed, which MG tells me is Australian summer-proof, but I guess we'll know for sure in a couple of months.

There’s no shortage of cargo room either. There’s a 32-litre frunk up front, and there’s 646 litres in the boot with the rear seats in place. They’re 60/40 split, and if you drop them, luggage space grows to 1621 litres.

The towing capacity is a braked 1500kg, too, but I don’t expect to see many of these towing a camper trailer around.

Premium play means more premium prices, and my IM6 Performance will set you back $80,990 on the road. That might have just sent your eyebrows skyward, but keep in mind it’s faster than some Ferraris, and is swimming with high-end tech, so the bang-for-buck factor is actually still pretty good.

There are cheaper ones, too. The single-motor Premium grade is $60,990 drive-away, albeit with less power and slower charging. Then there’s the Platinum, with a bigger battery and faster charging, which is $69,990

The Performance, though, gets everything IM has to give, including an 800-volt architecture, which means super-fast charging, as well as twin motors, brutal acceleration, a decent driving range and adaptive air suspension.

Elsewhere, you get LED lighting, a big and insulated glass roof, and 20-inch alloy wheels. Inside, there are thick and soft synthetic leather seats that are heated and cooled in both rows, a banging 20-speaker sound system, and wireless charging to pair with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

There’s also 'active noise cancellation', and a seat-aware digital assistant which is about the best, and fastest, I’ve ever used. The IM6’s speaker system can locate where a voice is coming from, so any passenger can use the assistant. For example, if you’re in the backseat and say 'hey IM, lower my window', only your window opens. It’s a technology that I specifically remember the German brands crowing about not so long ago.

There’s also a 10.5-inch central touchscreen that controls much of the vast 26.3-inch screen that runs from in front of the driver to the centre of the cabin, as well as clever little magnets embedded in the dash in front of the driver, as well as in the back of the front seat headrests, that are designed to hold phones, iPads or other little accessories.

Also cool is the IM6’s self-parking tech, but there’s also a relatively useless crab walk function, which leans on the rear-wheel steering system to drive diagonally at slow speeds. I’m still not entirely sure when you’d use that one, to be honest.

Honestly, it’s a lot of stuff, and a lot of tech.

The Hyundai Inster Standard Range kicks off power proceedings, with a single front-mounted electric motor producing 71kW and 147Nm.

Next is the Extended Range, which shares its outputs with the Inster Cross. Here, the front-mounted motor’s outputs have been ticked up slightly, now producing 84kW and 147Nm.

Those aren’t big numbers, but then neither does either Inster feel particularly slow or underpowered. 

This is the real party trick of the IM6, because there’s a nuclear power plant under the metal somewhere. All up, the twin-motor setup produces a total 578kW and 802Nm, though I suspect you’re never accessing all the grunt all at once. Still, 100km/h zips by in 3.4 seconds, and the top speed is 239km/h. For the record, that’s exactly as fast the Ferrari Roma Spider I recently handed back, so yeah, it’s properly supercar quick.

Standard Range cars get a 42kWh lithium-ion battery, producing a driving range of 327km. The Extended Range and the Cross get a bigger 49kWh battery, increasing the range to 360kms. Now, that roof box. It does look cool, but you’re going to really need to carry stuff to choose that option, given it increases energy consumption by 25 per cent, reducing the Cross’s range to just 293km.

When it comes to charging, the Inster is set up for 120kW DC fast charging, or 10.5kW AC charging - provided you have that much power available at home, as most wall boxes are more like 7.1kW.

Also on board is a 100kWh Nickel-Cobalt-Magnesium battery that produces a WLTP driving range of 505kms. Pretty good.

Charging is strong, too. The high-tech platform allows for 396kW DC fast charging, which is faster than what is currently offered in Australia. The claim is 30-80 per cent charged in 15 minutes. There’s also an external vehicle-to-load (V2L) port.

Honestly, the impact electrification has had on vehicles in this class is staggering.

It wasn't so long ago that these micro cars were fitted with underwhelming petrol engines, four- or five-speed gearboxes and all the noise-deadening technology of a tin of beans.

As a result, they were cute, but painful. It always felt like you had to wring their neck to get the most out of them, and when you did, they were loud, buzzy and annoying.

But the Inster is none of those things. While not ludicrously powerful, the electric propulsion offered, and the nature of the way it's produced, feels ample in the little Hyundai, with the acceleration smooth, silent and easy,

It's also just generally quiet. Hyundai says it has double-sealed the doors, used thicker glass and fitted full underbody coverings to reduce the NVH - or noise, vibration, harshness - levels, and all of that, combined with the peace and quiet of an electric motor, have created a mostly blissful cabin experience.

The ride and handling hasn't been through the full Hyundai Australia ride and handling calibration of old. Instead, it's undergone the brand's more modern approach, which is to take the best componentry from what's available overseas and then build the Aussie-spec cars from there.

Either way, it all works pretty well here. Only really big bumps clang into the cabin, with the Inster otherwise riding well over all of the road surfaces we encountered.

The point, I guess, is that it's a drive experience stuffed full of happy surprises. The ride, the acceleration and the refinement are all well up on what you might expect from a city car.

First things first, don't get too distracted by the word "performance" here. The IM6 doesn't act like a performance car, it feels bit too plush, and bit too digital, for that.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Performance cars are often loud, raucous and uncomfortable, and the IM6 is none of those things. Instead, those mountains of power and torque make silky, silent progress absolutely effortless, which feels pretty premium to me.

MG makes a big deal of how much work went into insulating the cabin from noise – with active noise cancellation joined by double-paned insulated glass – and it is a properly calming and quiet space.

Also strong is the suspension, with the adaptive air setup soaking up most bumps and bruises, but I found it can clang over really solid bumps, sounding like it's bouncing off a stopper. The steering is solid, too, with a nice weight, if not overly talkative in the feedback department, while the rear-wheel steering helps eat into the turning circle for tight three-point turns.

The downside, though, is that it all feels a little too digital, and like there's been a little too much overthinking gone into it. Having to push a button to see behind you in a hurry is bonkers (see my explanation in the Safety section below), and the secondary screen is more annoying than intuitive. And there were several bings or bongs I couldn't even identify. All of which interrupts the otherwise calming nature of the drive experience.

There is a long list of safety aids on the IM6, and I won't detail the lot here. But I will call out a couple of curious mentions.

As always, the driver distraction warning is annoying, but can be switched off. And MG also counts the IM platform, or what it calls a digital chassis, as part of the safety offering. It has its own digital brain that adapts the air suspension, the rear-wheel steering and the active safety kit on the fly.

The other curiosity is the weird way you see out the back. Rather than fit a digital rear-view mirror to counteract the almost non-existent rear vision, you instead push up on a little toggle on the steering wheel to bring up a live view of what's happening behind you on the central screen.

The Inster delivers super long service intervals, requiring a trip to the service centre every two years or 30,000kms, but each service is priced at $655. A Toyota Yaris Cross, for perspective, will see you visit the service centre twice as often, but each visit will only cost you $255, or $510 every two years.

The Hyundai warranty is five years/unlimited kilometres, while the high-voltage battery is covered for eight years.

The IM6 is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, rather than MG’S 10-year term. Capped-price servicing is offered for the first five years, with your total bill just under $3000. The service intervals are 20,000kms or 12 months.