I have a hot take. Cars need to get smaller, not bigger.
Cars are getting too complicated, with too many features, some of those features are good, some of those features aren’t even needed.
Now whilst I do have high praise for the Tesla Model 3 and in fact, a hell of a lot of other EVs here, I do have a soft spot for silly little nuggety hatchbacks. I’ve owned two Hyundai Getz’s, for example, and in my opinion, those little things are incredibly good… For their age. You got VW Polo build quality for less than the cost of a Toyota Echo of that time period.
So colour me shocked when i tell you that the successor to the Getz, the Kia Picanto (aka the Kia Morning in its native South Korea) is a cracker little car. It’s a shame it’s not electric, otherwise it’d basically be perfect.
Part 1: So… Why no second EV?
Well, EVs have a fundamental three-way (giggity) conundrum here. Efficiency, Size and cost.
The average range of EV that people would actively start considering the ownership of, is about 400km of usable range. The Tesla Model 3 can get about 450km from its 60kWh pack, and the Model Y with the same pack can get around 400-ish on the nose. Efficiency is a huge thing for EVs, and counterintuitively, weight has a lot less play in this factor. An electric car can be physically heavier whilst also being relatively efficient, as aerodynamics plays a much bigger role in efficiency gains than the actual weight of a car. Teslas are super efficient because they take what the Prius and the Porsche 917 perfected in terms of Aero and minmaxed it.
The entire point of the Kammtail or K-Tail is to allow the air to break off the car, essentially creating a turbulent wake behind the car that allows laminar airflow to have a less profound effect on drag. Essentially, this means the car cuts through the air better whilst also allowing for the car to well, be a car. Now, this is less important for a car that’s designed to go fast in the straights and in the corners, considering that Porsche’s 917 lacked the downforce needed to actually be quick in the corners, where speed is more crucial. This is extremely important however for a car that’s designed to save fuel and/or energy.
In fact, Aptera employs this to an almost comical extreme in its three-wheeled prototype, wherein as much work is being done as possible to minimise both frontal and especially rearward areas.
ICEVs get more efficient as they go faster or go into taller gears due to the fact that the design and mechanical principles of an engine almost necessitate more gears. EVs do also benefit from multi-speed gearboxes, but less so, as most electric vehicles, and indeed most vehicles in general, are designed to do the work of transporting people in cities. Hybrids and EVs make sense for more commuters due to the nature of electric motors and how they work better at lower speeds/stop-start traffic.
Now, whilst it’d be swell to have everyone whizz about in small, two-seater sporty cars with kamm-back Aero, like what Elon Musk envisions with the Cybercab, cars currently need to carry four people. Sports car sales are at an all time low, and they’re only getting lower, due to the fact that in tough economic times, having a purpose-built vehicle is getting to be a harder and harder sell. Smaller four-seat cars are a good option, but they are less capable than their SUV counterparts, and ironically enough, the high-riding, unaerodyamic nature of certain SUVs can actually lend itself well to EV makers, as you can overcome shit aerodynamics by cramming in just the right amount of batteries into the car.
That therefore, means that even the smallest of EVs will have relatively big batteries. Currently the two smallest EVs for sale in Australia are the BYD Atto 1 and the Hyundai Inster. The Atto 1 has at most a 290km range with its long-range variant, and the Inster has at most, a 300km range with no accessories, for its long range variant, well outside the 400km minimum that most people want.
Now this is not to say these vehicles aren’t useless. Not at all, in fact. Most people drive at most 15-20km to get to work. Meaning both the Inster and the Atto 1 fall well within range for the average commuter. My Model 3 uses about 25% of its battery, at most to do the 80km roundtrip to both drop myself and my partner off in the morning, and to pick her up and do the weekly shop in the evening… If i even need to do that at all, that is.
But, people want these longer ranges. Some people, especially those who drive for work, need these longer ranges.
This is why EVs at large, are subcompact crossovers or small sedans. They’re somewhat aerodynamic, big enough to cram a decent amount of batteries in to get that 400km range target, they can seat four people nicely, and they can do pretty much most tasks a car needs to do. However, there’s one other problem, and that is the demand for light trucks.
Currently the top ten cars for sale in Australia in terms of numbers are all utility vehicles and SUVs. Three out of the top ten cars sold in Australia are dual-cab utes. Bigger cars are in demand because they simply do more, according to those who buy them. This has devastating consequences for emissions, however the climate is unfortunately, the last thing on most people’s minds these days.
So why then did I recommend the Picanto to my partner to buy? Well this is the other factor. Cost. Because you’ve gotta cram a big battery into a compatible EV, and because my partner uses her car for work purposes, so long as it beat the per-kilometre charge her company pays her for travel in terms of its fuel cost whilst also providing her with the safety features she needs to keep her safe at work, that’s all that matters. Whilst she could afford a Hyundai Inster quite easily, and whilst it is indeed compatible with the DCFC networks here, we’d need to compete with the single low-power charging plug we have available. For a work vehicle, it is feasible, but also $10,000 too expensive for what would amount to a minimal gain for her work.
So, enter the Picanto GT-Line. It’s got all the features she needs, a 7 year warranty, a tiny little 1.2L engine, nice, light steering, and all the kit she needs to just get to the business of doing her job. Servicing is cheap and can be written off on tax, fuel costs are low and can also be written off on tax (for the work proportion of it’s use) and since the car’s entire role is just to be a vehicle for work purposes, it’s a great choice. In fact, that leads me on to the first reason, ironically enough.
Part 2: It just plain works!
Part of the main reason why I recommend Tesla above any other brand for EVs is just down to the simple fact that as an Electric Vehicle, it works extremely well. In the same way I make the NPC decision these days to recommend friends and family get iPhones and Macbooks for the same reason. They just… work.
Likewise, outside of the Gamma engine fiasco that has a class-action still ongoing, and the Kia Boys crime spree wherein failed security systems can be defeated with the car’s included USB cable, Hyundai/Kia engines are pretty solid. The Picanto’s got a timing chain, unlike the Getz’s belt, for example, which has to be changed every 100,000km, this means provided you take the car in for regular servicing, you’d never need to really bother with changing it.
There’s just stuff in this little nugget that I wish more automakers would do. None of this stupid active temperature based climate control nonsense, just give me the old three-dial HVAC. Where you want it, how hard you want it, and how hot you want it. Best of all, in the Picanto, like the Getz, and unlike my old Holden, it’s freakin’ mechanical! No stupid wipers or actuators that need to relearn positions when good old cables and levers do this just fine. It also means that you can just replace a box of plastic as opposed to a complicated electronic circuit board when shit goes wrong. The only electronic actuator in the whole damn HVAC system is the actuator that switches between fresh-air and recirculation modes, which can actually be controlled by the car if the interior air gets too dry or too humid. A neat little touch on this GT-Line model.
I love this system so much in fact, that if any automakers are listening, you could even just bury the “climate control” function for EVs behind an electronic thermistor or rotary encoder for the hot/cold dial. That way the heatpump would just hold “an temperature” when dialled in. Idk, make cold like, 16C, and make “hot” 30C. We can figure it out. Or hell, just give us a damn knob already. More automakers need to do this. Three dials are where it’s at. Rant over.
It is the most “an car” car I have ever driven, bar from my Tesla, which is basically just a robot on wheels. It’s little wonder then that many fleet operators have bought handfuls of these to serve as company cars to get workers from destination to destination. Name me a real estate agency or healthcare provider that doesn’t at least have one Picanto (or Picanto-adjacent car) in their fleet, and i’ll have a bridge to sell you. They’re cheap to own, cheap to operate, and cheap to fix if things go wrong.
This leads me to my second reason. One that’s a little… controversial
Part 3: It’s everything she needs, nothing she doesn’t.
These days we oftentimes buy cars that are bigger, roomier and more practical than what we actually want or need. Remember before how I was mentioning that people want EVs with a minimum of 400km of range? Well that’s because that’s what they’re used to with an existing ICEV. However, the paradigm changes when you go from an ICEV to an EV, because the way you use an EV is entirely different, yet similarly familiar to how you’d use an ICEV.
An ICEV depends on centralised infrastructure, meaning you must go to the petrol station to purchase a combustible, one time use fuel, that you can never use again once it’s burnt. EVs don’t necessarily “burn” their fuel, I mean they do, if you charge at night it’s almost certain that fossil fuels are being used to power your charging. That charging is going to be way, way more efficient than an equivalent engine ever will be, but let’s not beat about the bush here. At night, unless you live in an area or in a home with massive battery storage, or in an area running off of Geothermal or Hydro power, EVs are External Combustion Vehicles… Still way, way cleaner than an ICEV though, and as the grid gets cleaner, so too does your car.
So yes, a smaller EV would and should have worked, but here’s the issue here. My partner’s out and about for her work. She does a ton of driving. However, even a tiny little car like the Picanto, with its paltry range of 450km per tank, takes about a week to drain its fuel tank from 100 percent tot 25 percent. The fact she can take say, ten minutes out of her workday, grab some fuel, and go again for another week, sounds really, really convenient. And it is, for this tiny little hatchback, because EVs haven’t quite cracked that nut yet. There needs to be a lot more DCFCs in order to make a small EV as viable as a full-sized ICEV for people who need small cars, but who also need to drive a lot. That or battery density needs to get way, way better. On top of that, there’s no truly small EVs that sat within her price range… Well, there were, but they used the wrong kind of plugs to use the DCFC networks here in Australia…
So she bought all the vehicle she needed. Her goals were simple. It had to consume less fuel than the 15-year-old Getz it replaced, and it had to be more reliable than the Getz it replaced. The Picanto fit the bill nicely.
Part 4: Stop repeating yourself goddamn it, how does it actually drive?
Pretty well, actually! I mean, absolutely do not get your expectations up. This is no Tesla. It isn’t even a BYD Atto 1. An Atto 1 is faster in every way. 0-100kph is a sluggish 11 seconds or so with your foot literally welded to the floor. The thing is though, it is not really designed for the 0-100 sprint. Leave that to the Tesla and its other electric brethren.
What this car excels in is just being really easy to wheel around. It has fantastic sideways and forward visibility, at the cost of the ROPS being integrated into the rear instead of the front, meaning it’s a little trickier to see out the back than the Getz, but way easier to see out the front.
The steering wheel is light. Really light, kinda overboosted in fact, and a little numb. People complain that Teslas have no steering feel, yet here’s Kia, making the steering feel like an ice cold shot of Demerol to your arm.
…But that’s what people who buy these kinds of cars want. Something that’s easy to chuck around the city. After all, that’s the entire point of the Picanto. It’s a city car. It’s designed to be tiny, to be punted around tight corners and do really stupid stuff you couldn’t possibly do with bigger cars due to their size.
Ironically enough too, the Picanto packs a lot of kit for its dirt-cheap price, even when compared to its Chinese rivals. Lane keep assist in a small compact car? Never thought that’d be a thing! It came out of the box with stuff that my Tesla didn’t even get until I got a software update to fix those issues. Rear Cross-traffic alert and cyclist detection came to HW4 Model 3 owners in 2024’s Holiday update, whereas this Kia gets it right out of the box. Neat stuff!
I recommended she picks the GT Line for one more reason too, it gets a really nice automatic-dimming LED light set on the front, and they’re surprisingly bright. The lights aren’t matrix lights like what my Tesla has, but they do dip automatically the very second the car detects an oncoming car.
Luckily too both my partner and I are quite short, so that means back-seat passengers get an almost limousine like experience in the back. The fact that it uses mechanical adjusting seats is really nice, although seeing as this car does have leather seats, I really wish Kia put in-seat ventilation as an option. If you’re going to make your car’s seat sout of leather or vinyl, ventilated seats are a must in the Australian climate, in my opinion.
The only real downsides to me are firstly, the fact that the door bins are kinda tight, which makes storing 1.25L sparkling water bottles a total pain, secondly, the fact that there’s no rear seat USB charging for back seat passengers, and finally, the 16 inch wheels the GT-Line comes with make the ride a little rough. I’d personally opt for the 14s, but you can’t get those unless you get the base sport model, and if you do that, you miss out on those nice LED headlights. I think those are important if you’re like my partner and have difficulty seeing at night.
Apart from that? Really nice kit in this GT-Line. I even like the Infotainment system. CarPlay is wireless and really smooth, way smoother than the aftermarket option installed in the Getz.
Part 5: Oh, how i wish this was Electric. It can be, it will just take time.
The thing is, we need smaller vehicles. We need more of them, despite what most people feel about their desires for larger cars, we need cars to be smaller, we need them to be cheaper and we need them to be better. America is screaming for a $25k EV, and boy are they getting close with the new, and indeed really nice, updated Nissan Leaf.
Australia, with its open and free car market, needs to soon see a $20k electric car with at least 300km of range sooner rather than later. Now sure, you could get a heavily used, and heavily outdated Silver Trim HW3 Model 3 SR+ for about $25k now, but that comes with all the issues Fremont Teslas have. All the rattles, squeaks and misaligned body panels those cars come with.
With LFP batteries getting cheaper and cheaper, BYD can really make some ground by trying its best to get close to the cost of this Picanto GT-Line’s full price and range. After all, this car was only $24k Drive Away with a sizeable dealer discount, and the BYD Atto 1, in base range trim is $26k for 220km of usable range, or $30k for some nicer wheels and 310km of usable range. They’re getting really, really close. However, if the Koreans can still make an ICEV cheaper with only 100km more range, all the Chinese need to do is focus on the fundamentals.
There’s also the trust factor with the Chinese brands. BYD is for now, looking like it’s going to stay, but we’ve been burnt by the Chinese brands in the past. My partner herself didn’t buy a BYD Atto 1 purely due to Chinese car skepticism, and indeed, we are at the same impasse with Chinese cars today as we had with Korean cars in the 90s. My family was one of the first families on our street to buck this trend, and my family’s been buying Hyundai/Kia products for over 20 years now.
Now I hope to heck that we can eventually realise that more marques on the market is a good thing, especially the Americans. I mean, it was Tesla’s unabashed arrival into the Chinese market that resulted in Chinese EVs getting to be as good as they are now. The Chinese call this the “Catfish in a Koi Pond” effect, and they did this to make Chinese automakers sit bolt-upright in their collective chairs, telling them “well if you cannot make decent ICEVs, this is what you need to try and beat”
Indeed in China, BYD and Tesla are two giant rock golems beating the living shit out of eachother. It was the rise of the Xiaomi YU7 that forced Tesla’s hand into making the Model Y L, a six seater, multigenerational vehicle that allowed kids to transport their grandparents and their own kids around, as many Chinese families tend to share vehicles due to higher per-vehicle costs.
Kia already has the potential to absolutely do this. The Picanto’s sister car, the Hyundai Casper, shares an EV platform with the Hyundai Inster. In fact, Kia’s already working on it. Hopefully some of the cool stuff that’s in the Inster, such as its flexible interior and focus on efficiency per dollar, comes into this new Picanto.
In short, the Kia Picanto GT-Line is the car we all need. Small, cheap to operate, efficient (kinda) and practical. If it was Electric? Well it’d basically be the perfect car for us. The fact that it’s an ICEV shouldn’t stop you, especially if you’re replacing an older, thirstier car like the Getz or an older, non-hybrid Yaris or something. I always say, if you cannot stomach an EV, at least get something that’s more fuel efficient than your current vehicle. Any fuel savings is money in your pocket you can use to buy other stuff, like spending money on RCs or books or whatever the hell else you enjoy. Cars are, most importantly, just transportation machines, after all.
Either way, it’s great. Go get one.
Beano out. Have a good one 🙂