Kia Picanto vs MG MG3

What's the difference?

If you're feeling the cost of living sting, there's a good chance you've scaled back your ambitions for your next new car. You may have even looked at some of Australia's most affordable brand-new vehicles and the Kia Picanto is one of them.

It's one of the few brand-new options left with a before-on-roads starting price of under $20,000 and it's one of the few non-performance models left which can still be chosen as a manual.

It's one thing to be affordable, though, and quite another to be good value - so does the freshly updated 2024 Picanto have what it takes to stack up against more expensive options? Let's take a look.

A number of established small cars are becoming more expensive and less popular. The Toyota Yaris, Mazda2 and Suzuki Swift were once the go-to first car, but now start at around $25,000.

This repositioning was great for MG and its sub-$20,000 MG3, which has spent much of the last few years as Australia's most popular light car. It’s hard to deny a low price will open many wallets.

But now in its new generation, the MG3 is thousands of dollars more expensive than before, starting in the mid-$20K range and headed even further up with a new hybrid drivetrain option. We jump in the base petrol Excite to find out if the value is still there for this British-branded, Chinese-built hatchback.