Hyundai INSTER vs VW e-Up!

The VW e-Up! is £560 cheaper to buy. Running costs are almost identical - about £160 a year either way, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the VW e-Up! comes out roughly £560 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 145 miles for the Hyundai INSTER and 116 miles for the VW e-Up! - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Hyundai INSTER goes roughly 29 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 30 minutes in the Hyundai INSTER and 49 in the VW e-Up!, so the Hyundai INSTER loses less time at each stop. That makes the Hyundai INSTER the stronger long-distance car.

The Hyundai INSTER is the easier car for tight UK car parks: it is 35 mm narrower than the VW e-Up!. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 790 mm of total clearance for the Hyundai INSTER and about 755 mm of total clearance for the VW e-Up!. The VW e-Up! also turns in a 0.8 m tighter circle, which helps with U-turns and multi-storey ramps.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Hyundai INSTER and 84% for the VW e-Up!. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation. Both batteries carry a 8-year manufacturer warranty.