2022 Kia Picanto vs 2023 Toyota Yaris

What's the difference?

The Picanto GT is the least expensive sporty runabout for the money, providing a dash of visual flair and plenty of gear to go with its punchy performance.

If you’re a warm or hot hatch buyer, however, you might find that the Kia lacks the vital handling focus and dynamic polish of the better (albeit costlier) alternatives, even if there’s enough muscle on tap to raise a few pulses.

No, it’s best to enjoy the GT for what it represents in 2022 – a more eager and entertaining option for budget buyers who seek a city runabout with a bit more speed and spice.

And, don't forget: as only Kia currently occupies this space, even the most expensive Picanto represents great value that never feels cheap.

The Yaris ZR hybrid is a very impressive little hatch. Small, agile, fuel efficient, nice-to-drive and safe, it's certainly set the bar to beat in the small car segment. The trouble is, all of this costs money, placing this particular version outside the budgets of many would-be small car buyers.

Fun fact: the Picanto is known as the Morning in some countries.

Commanding some 70 per cent of all sales, its only competition nowadays in Australia is the ancient Fiat 500 and soon-to-vanish Mitsubishi Mirage. Former rivals like the Holden Spark, Nissan Micra and Suzuki Celerio are history, though the tall and skinny Suzuki Ignis should be included too even though it is classed as an SUV.

Speaking of height, let’s talk size.

At just under 3.6 metres long, 1.6m wide and 1.5m high, the pert Picanto is classed internationally as a ‘sub-B’ city car (known inaccurately as well as rather disparagingly as the Micro segment in Australia), that sits below regular superminis/light cars like the Mazda2 and Toyota Yaris.

A clean and elegant design that has aged well since launching in 2017, the JA-series Picanto is the third-generation version since the nameplate was debuted internationally in 2004, and helped establish Kia as a globally relevant player in mature markets like Europe.

Mid-2020 saw a minor facelift with a revised front-end styling, equipment and technical improvements inside and some small mechanical upgrades.

It's instantly identifiable as a Yaris, despite getting a significant design overhaul with the last generation. Toyotas don't have a unifying design language, but they do have key elements which tie them together, allowing each model to stand apart, but be recognisable as part of the greater Toyota portfolio, regardless.

This Yaris is much better looking than the generation which came before it, with lots of little detail points which make it an attractive small car to look at.

From the outside this includes curvy panel work which works its way from the button-nose and Toyota logo, all the way down the side of the car and to the boot lid in the rear.

There's big attention to detail in even the plastic fill panels, which carry a patterned texture to stop them from looking boring up-close, and our ZR is finished with a healthy serve of contrast black across its roof, in its alloy wheels, and on the integrated spoiler it wears on its tailgate.

It's a cool little car, a little bit cute, and a little bit sporty. It certainly needs to be at the asking price.

Inside sports Toyota's typical approach to interior design with some interesting touches. The Yaris gets some common themes, like the little cut-outs in the dash, the multimedia screen perched atop, and thankfully physical controls for the climate functions.

The seats follow the bucket-like theme of other ZRs, although, in this case they are finished in a light-patterned premium cloth trim, as opposed to the suede and leather ones in its larger Corolla sibling.

The three-spoke steering wheel is cool, as are the funky dot-matrix style dash elements, but the strange felt-like door trim, which also lacks padding for your elbow, is a bit odd. Still, it's an upgrade on the rough scratchy material used in lesser variants.

In typical Toyota fashion, there are quite a few hard plastic materials mixed in with the inclusion of a soft dash-topper, but the Yaris is a supposedly affordable small car after all.

Not as squishy as the diminutive proportions may suggest.

As sub-B superminis vanish from our roads, the Picanto seems smaller and narrower compared to what else is out there. Looking like a Hyundai i30 interior that’s been Xeroxed down to by 70 per cent, the five-seater cabin is tall but slim, with your passenger sitting closer to you than in similarly priced cars like the MG3 or Suzuki Swift.

But it doesn’t feel cramped or tight thanks to deep windows and a pair of well-shaped and largely comfortable front bucket seats. The GT’s set have a sporty look to them, with the driver’s side offering the usual height-adjustment facility to match the ample sliding and reclining functionality.

An unusual item are the front headrest’s fore-aft movement that’s designed to minimise whiplash injury in the event of a collision.

Then there’s the commanding driving position. The dashboard looks big-Kia mature, with full instrumentation (including the always-welcome auxiliary digital speedo since the 2020 facelift), volumous air vents and tonnes of storage, even down to a lidded deep recess underneath the front centre armrest. Accessing the switchgear is also no sweat, and all have a quality look and feel to them.

Smart and contemporary, the 8.0-inch touchscreen offers a wide range of multimedia functionality, backed up by a 12V outlet, USB-A port, remote steering wheel controls, power windows all round (one-touch for the driver) and wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity.

However, not everything is plain sailing inside.

The steering column does not adjust for reach, there’s no digital radio and the vinyl seats are fine in winter but can feel clammy and hot in warm weather. Beware of that if you’re not wearing sufficient clothing. And – given these are so-called premium ‘sports’ seats, why can’t we have lumbar adjustment for the driver?

Access to the rear seat is a bit of a squeeze due to the restrictive 2400mm wheelbase length and narrow doors this entails, but once sat there, a 180cm person can easily position behind similarly-sized people up front. Squeezing in three adults isn’t easy, especially for the hapless middle passenger, but two riders only should find ample room and comfort, due in most part to the sufficiently sculptured backrest and cushion. The latter is set up quite high, allowing for easier vision out, especially for shorter folk.

There is no need for face-level air vents back there as the front ones reach rear riders, and overhead grab handles, door grab storage, a single map pocket and windows that disappear all the way down are further nice touches, but there is no rear-seat overhead lighting. 

Note that while the Picanto is tolerably quiet from road and wind noise intrusion at urban speeds, at freeway ones it can get quite loud in there.

Further back, the hatch opens up to reveal a pretty limited 255-litre cargo capacity, that’s extended to 1010L with the 50/50 split/fold backrests dropped down. The boot floor is deep but there isn’t that much length to take bulkier items. As mentioned earlier, a space-saver spare wheel is included; it’s recessed under the boot floor.

A modern and inviting cabin that’s very civilised to boot in most urban settings, the Picanto is both roomier and more comfortable than its bargain-basement price suggests, with the GT’s ritzier trim adding a racier ambience to help justify its extra expense.

The Yaris is small on the outside and small on the inside, too.

This means two things: Firstly this car is a breeze to park and it fits in lots of places, making it ideal to drive around the confines of a city.

On the other hand, there's been a clear design choice here to make the Yaris far from as boxy as it could be, focusing on the curvy looks at the cost of interior volume.

The Kia Rio, for example, does a great job of hitting both tight exterior dimensions with big interior ones, making it perhaps a better choice for those with families, although the Rio is set for the great scrapyard in the sky before long.

The inside of the Yaris adds up to a space which is clearly primarily constructed for the space and comfort of front occupants.

Adjustability is good, with telescopic and height adjust for the steering, relatively large comfortable seats, and a set of two surprisingly decent bottle holders in the doors with two more running down the centre console.

There's no armrest box, as it would impede the function of the centre airbag, so there's nowhere to rest your elbow, and the rare inclusion of a manual handbrake lever precludes the addition of further storage between the seats.

The dial-based climate control panel is welcome, and there's a small bay underneath for the storage of your phone, although, like every other storage nook in the cabin, the base is not rubberised, so objects will simply slide around when you're cornering.

The back seat feels very closed-in, especially in the ZR grade, which makes things worse with its dark headlining and heavy window tint, and while I still like the seat trim and large bottle holders in the doors, it's not hard to feel forgotten.

My knees have just a tiny amount of room from the driver's seat set to my own driving position (I'm 182cm tall), and even the so-so door trim is instead replaced by a plain plastic panel. There is also no centre drop-down armrest, nor is there a power outlet.

A caution for those with kids: The rear door doesn't even open very far, so it strikes me as being difficult to work with for the placement of child seats.

The boot also offers a tiny 270 litres, just big enough for our largest CarsGuide demo case but not the other two in the set, which is actually only 124 litres once you include the thickness of the case itself and the wheels.

The ZR Hybrid version we're reviewing here is the ultimate version of the standard Yaris range - excluding the unhinged, rally-bred GR Yaris which only shares a handful of body panels with this car, anyway.

Costing from a frankly wild $33,100, before on-road costs, it's a far cry from the once sub-$20K car the Yaris used to be. It wasn't even that long ago (2020) you could pick up the previous-generation Yaris SX in automatic guise for just $19,610, before on-roads.

This new Yaris is truly 'new' though, built entirely from the ground up to suit Toyota's TNGA platform philosophy, and it's also the first time you can buy a hybrid one.

The result is one of the most recently engineered small cars you can buy in Australia, a far cry from the ancient MG3 or ageing Mazda2.

Is this worth a lot of extra money? To many buyers in this small car segment the answer is probably not, judging by the fact the MG3 is now outselling the Yaris at an insane ratio of 8:1. But standard equipment is impressive regardless, especially at this ZR grade.

Included are 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, a 7.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, built-in sat-nav, a 4.2-inch multifunction display and dot-matrix-style dash cluster elements, a head-up display, a leather-accented steering wheel, sports seats with cloth upholstery, single-zone climate control, alongside one of the most comprehensive safety suites in the small car segment.

The unique selling point is the hybrid system, though. It makes the Yaris one of the most fuel efficient cars without a plug in Australia - but perhaps by far the biggest issue facing this car is an equivalent ZR Hybrid Corolla costs just $5020 more.

Under the Picanto’s stubby bonnet is a gem of an engine – a 998cc 1.0-litre double overhead cam three-cylinder direct-injection turbo petrol unit known as the G3LC, developing 74kW of power at 4500rpm and 172Nm of torque from as low as 1500rpm to 4000rpm.

With a tare weight of just 1012kg, it delivers a power-to-weight ratio of 73.1kW per tonne (or 72kW/tonne if measured using its 1026kg kerb weight), for a 0-100km/h sprint time of around 9.4 seconds.

Driving the front wheels is a five-speed manual gearbox. Unlike the visually similar GT-Line powered by the 1.2-litre four-pot petrol engine, no automatic transmission is available. The latter is an old-fashioned four-speed torque-converter auto.

The Yaris ZR hybrid pairs a 1.5-litre three-cylinder Atkinson-cycle petrol engine with an electric motor set-p on the front axle.

The engine on its own produces 67kW/120Nm, but is assisted by an additional 59kW/141Nm from the motor.

Combined, they are capable of producing a peak 85kW. It's about right for the segment the Yaris plays in, and of course there are advantages of the electrified set-up when it comes to acceleration, smoothness and fuel consumption.

The forces of both drive the front wheels via a silky smooth continuously variable transmission, which makes the switch between the two power sources seamless to the driver.

Our GT managed 6.6L/100km in hot, testing conditions that saw a fair share of performance testing and higher-speed driving as well as heavy traffic jams, which isn’t too far off the official 5.2L/100km as per Kia’s spec sheet claim. The latter equates to a carbon dioxide emissions rating of 122 grams per kilometre.

The Urban and Extra Urban consumption figures, by the way, are 6.8 and 4.4L/100km respectively.

Tuned to run on 91 RON standard unleaded petrol and compatible with a 94 RON E10 ethanol/petrol mix, the Picanto’s fuel tank is a measly 35 litres, resulting in a potential average distance between refills of 673km.

There is no stop/start technology fitted to help cut emissions and/or save fuel.

Fuel consumption sits at 3.3L/100km for the ADR combined cycle, which is one of the best fuel consumption figures for any car without a plug.

This figure will depend a bit on how you drive it, though, with my consumption for the week hitting a more reasonable 3.8L/100km in largely urban testing, which are ideal conditions for this configuration.

I am curious to know what conditions make the 3.3L/100km achievable (it certainly seems achievable), but the figure I scored is immensely impressive regardless.

You can even fill the Yaris with entry-level 91RON unleaded, and the 36-litre fuel tank makes for over 1000km of range if you can score closer to the official fuel consumption.

In a word... spirited.

It’s no shock to learn that the Picanto GT thrives around town.

With a rorty and rev-hungry three-pot turbo that’s champing at the bit to bolt off the line on one hand, and light-yet-agile steering on the other, the smallest Kia is ideal for darting about, zipping in and out of tight traffic spots and squeezing into tiny parking spaces with effortless ease. Its diminutive proportions, fine all-round vision and tight turning circle are excellent assets in the urban jungle.

Usually, a short wheelbase and relatively large wheels make for a choppy, restless ride. But the GT does an adequate job in absorbing most things that the roads throw up. While still quite firm, the suspension isn’t uncomfortable or agitating.

The Kia’s impressive speed and agility also translate well out on the open road, as long as the driver keeps the revs up – no real chore given the agreeable manual shifter and light clutch action. In such conditions, throttle response is immediate and effective, allowing for a surprisingly strong turn of speed for something so small.

Note, though, that there is quite a bit of tyre and road roar intrusion coming into the cabin at higher velocities.

If the revs aren’t in the sweet spot, expect a moment’s delay in engine response, since you’ll have to wait for the turbo to spool up before you feel the power kick in. In wet conditions, sometimes it can come on too suddenly, meaning that the front tyres could break traction, resulting in some scrappy progress.

The Picanto’s steering is fairly direct and composed, for accurate and controlled cornering, especially in dry conditions. But the handling is not as sharp or as involving as some enthusiasts might hope for from a warm hatch, since the GT doesn’t connect in the same, intimate way with a keen driver that, say, a Fiesta ST does so faithfully.

Note that the stability and traction control system can be disabled for drivers wishing to explore the chassis’ dynamic limits, but the lack of a limited slip differential may result in the front wheels bucking if driven carelessly in the rain. At least the brakes are effective and always at the ready to wash away speed quickly once that turbo starts to take effect.

Fun and feisty as the GT is, it's no GTi.

The Yaris shines when you hop behind the wheel. This car is not just great to drive, it is benchmark setting for the whole segment.

Toyota's TNGA chassis philosophy is on full show, with the components here combining for a nice ride, gentle but meaningful steering feel, and smooth, quiet acceleration.

It feels like a car with the ride and feedback characteristics of something much more expensive, which speaks to its new-from-the-ground-up formula.

Older cars in the segment can't hold a torch, while even the better-to-drive examples like the Suzuki Swift and Kia Rio lack the poise or polish of the Yaris, not to mention the hybrid system.

The system itself makes the fuel sipping tech addictive to use, with the drive indicator dial in the dash cluster making it obvious where the engine will turn on.

This helps you tailor your driving style to maximise your time using the electric motor only, boosting fuel efficiency.

Even the execution of this system is at its best here in the Yaris, which is light enough that significant amounts of acceleration time can be spent in pure EV mode.

It's not rapid, however. Yes, there's sufficient go from the combined 85kW to get the Yaris moving off the lights, but this drivetrain isn't engaging, making it tough to match the great handling characteristics on offer here.

The Yaris eats up corners in its stride, but really misses the turbo surge or engaging gear shifts of some of its rivals.

Like all hybrid Toyotas, this particular combination is a little unpleasant to drive more aggressively, as the little three-cylinder Atkinson-cycle unit gruffly revs its heart out, breaking the EV-veneer and eating into the otherwise impressive cabin ambiance.

If you're looking for a safe small car, the Yaris, particularly in ZR spec, is about as good as it gets.

While it also accounts for the high cost-of-entry for this model, you could argue the inclusion of comparatively high-end features like freeway-speed auto emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, and even eight airbags, including a centre airbag, is worth it.

The Yaris range (excluding the GR version) scored a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2020, a particular achievement, as it is to a much more difficult rating criteria compared to the Swift and Rio which were both rated five stars in 2017.

Kia has led the industry with a seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty for a number of years, with only Mitsubishi’s conditional 10-year warranty beating it for now.

Roadside assistance is complimentary the first year, which extends a further seven years as long as you return to an authorised Kia dealer for servicing annually or as required.

Intervals are every 12 months or 10,000km, while published basic capped-price servicing ranges from $283 to $606 depending on the interval. The total is $3127 over seven years, averaging $447 annually over that period at the time of publishing.

Like all Toyotas you can expect a five year, unlimited kilometre warranty with the Yaris, which is extendable to seven years if you stick to the official service schedule.

We recommend you do, not just because you keep your warranty, but because it's so affordable, you might as well.

The first five years of servicing for the Yaris hybrid is capped to just $245 a year. It needs to see the workshop once every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.

Combine this with the low fuel consumption, and the total cost of ownership here is impressive.