2017 Kia Picanto vs 2018

What's the difference?

Is the new generation Kia Picanto a can-do or a can’t-do car? We spent a week living with the Picanto S manual to find out.

Pssst. Want a media leak? Here’s one for you. Rumour has it Kia wants us to pronounce the name of its micro car the Picanto a certain way. Word is it wants the ‘cant’ part to be said as you’d say ‘canteen’ and definitely not in the way you’d say ‘can’t’. It’s a positive perception thing – you know, it’s a car that ‘can’. 

Of course it’s all gossip, but does Kia really have anything to be worried about? Is the new generation Kia Picanto a can-do or a can’t-do car? Rivals are thin on the ground in this micro car segment but the Holden Spark impressed us hugely when we drove it. There’s also the stylish Fiat 500 and the super popular Mitsubishi Mirage.

See our Kia Picanto range review here

We spent a week living with the Picanto S manual. We picked up the kids, did the shopping, commuted in peak hour traffic, took it on our regular test loop and discovered uncharted ‘for us’ narrow urban laneways. So what can and can’t it do? We found out.

Sales of micro cars are as small as the cars themselves. Really, there are just four choices for Australian buyers, but that includes the dwindling stock of the discontinued Suzuki Celerio.

Gone are the halcyon days of the Hyundai i20 and Nissan Micra, Australians rejected the rather good (but manual-only) Volkswagen Up and thus today the clear leader in the segment is the Kia Picanto.

The new Picanto is far and away the best-selling car in the segment, pitted against Mitsubishi's underwhelming Mirage and Holden's ageing Spark, both of which show monthly sales that have dropped to double digits. The Picanto commands almost half of micro-car sales, with Kia shifting 250 a month. What makes it so compelling? Price? Looks? Quality? Being fun to drive? Safety gear? Or could it be all of those things?