The smallest class like the Daihatsu Cuore are already gone. The small cars that are left are significantly larger than the former version that shared the same nameplate. For example the Yaris is a SUV now.
Can't really blame the manufacturers. The EU requires so much equipment on cars that you can't really turn a profit on a $10k car (like the Aygo/C1/107 was ~10 years ago). So if your car is going to cost $20k because of all the stuff it has to have it might as well be a bit bigger.
I’m not quite sure the safety equipment is to blame. Modern cars coming out of China go well beyond regulations, while still having great a price/features ratio.
Even very cheap cars like the “Dongfeng Box” have multiple airbags, emergency braking, lane keeping, etc, and safe to assume a lot of the components VW/Toyota use for these come from the same chinese suppliers.
