Small Kia caught by the new rules: cheap city cars are quietly vanishing

Kia UK boss Paul Philpott says the 1.0-litre Picanto cannot survive past 2029 under current rules. Small affordable hatchbacks keep disappearing.

The Kia Picanto could disappear from the UK market by 2030. The problem is not weak demand: the little hatchback still finds buyers, but its 1.0-litre petrol engine does not fit the upcoming ZEV Mandate rules.

Under current UK regulations, new combustion cars sold after 2030 will need some form of hybrid technology. From 2035 every new passenger car must be fully electric.

Paul Philpott, head of Kia in the UK, put it plainly: «We cannot sell the Picanto as a petrol car beyond the end of 2029».

According to Autocar, Kia is not planning to fit a hybrid system to the Picanto. That leaves the brand with a choice: replace the model, or walk away from the small affordable segment, as many rivals have already done. For buyers it is a painful scenario: simple city cars keep getting rarer, and electric models still rarely match that low entry price.

There is another reason. Sales of pure petrol models hurt Kia’s ability to meet its EV quotas. In 2026 the EV share has to reach 33% of new sales, rising to 38% in 2027 and 80% by 2030. Philpott warned that between 2027 and 2030 the brand will have to make «tough decisions» about its line-up.

The Picanto is no minor model for Kia. It has been on sale for more than 20 years, passed 250,000 lifetime UK sales in 2023, and found more than 13,500 buyers last year. But when only 20% of sales can be non-electric, the priority will almost certainly go to the Sportage — it brings volume and profit.

The Picanto’s likely successor is a small electric hatchback that Kia will bring to Europe next year. It is expected to wear the EV1 badge and take on the Renault 5, Citroen e-C3 and Peugeot e-208.

The Picanto is leaving not because nobody wants it. The cheap-car market is simply being squeezed by rules, batteries and the arithmetic of EV quotas.