‘Carspreading’ is on the rise | EUROtoday

Critics name it “carspreading”. In the UK and throughout Europe, vehicles are steadily turning into longer, wider and heavier. Consumers clearly like them – so much. They’re seen as sensible, protected and trendy, and gross sales are rising steadily. So, why are some cities decided to clamp down on them – and are they proper to take action?

Paris is famend for a lot of issues. Its monuments, such because the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. Its broad, leafy avenues and boulevards, its museums and artwork galleries, its superb delicacies. And its actually appalling site visitors.

Over the previous 20 years, the town authorities have been making an attempt to deal with the issue, by introducing low-traffic and low-emission zones, by selling public transport and biking – and most just lately by clamping down on large vehicles.

In October 2024 on-street parking fees for visiting “heavy” autos have been trebled following a public vote, taking them from €6 to €18 for a one-hour keep within the centre, and from €75 to €225 for six hours.

“The larger it is, the more it pollutes,” mentioned the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, earlier than the vote. The new restrictions, she claimed, would “accelerate the environmental transition, in which we are tackling air pollution”.

A number of months later, the city corridor claimed the variety of very heavy vehicles parking on the town streets had fallen by two-thirds.

Cities elsewhere are taking notice, together with within the UK. Cardiff council has already determined to extend the price of parking permits for vehicles weighing greater than 2,400kg – the equal of roughly two Ford Fiestas.

The Labour-controlled authority mentioned, “These heavier vehicles typically produce more emissions, cause greater wear and tear on roads, and critically pose a significantly higher risk in the event of a road traffic collision.”

To start with, the upper fees will solely apply to a small minority of auto fashions, however Cardiff plans to decrease the load threshold over time. Other native authorities are mulling comparable steps.

But many house owners say they’re reliant on large vehicles.

Matt Mansell, a father of three based mostly in Guildford, runs a know-how firm, in addition to a property improvement enterprise, and says he wants his Land Rover Defender 110 for ferrying round purchasers and kids.

“I need to have enough space to put children in, with all of their kit – also, you can fit a door or a three-foot length of pipe in it,” he says.

“It’s very much a utility vehicle, but it’s presentable.”

There isn’t any query vehicles within the UK and Europe have been getting greater through the years. Since 2018, the common width of latest fashions on sale right here has risen from 182cm to 187.5cm, in response to information from Thatcham Research – an organisation that evaluates new vehicles on behalf of the insurance coverage business.

The common weight, in the meantime, has elevated from 1,365kg to 1,592kg over the identical interval.

This isn’t just a current phenomenon. Data compiled by the International Council for Clean Transportation reveals the common width of vehicles on European markets grew by almost 10cm between 2001 and 2020. Length elevated by greater than 19cm.

Some critics argue this can be a worrying development, as a result of there merely is not sufficient room on Britain’s crowded, usually slim roads or on the town centres.

The commonplace minimal width of an on-street parking house is 1.8m in lots of locations. But figures revealed by T&E, a inexperienced transport marketing campaign group, counsel that by the primary half of 2023, greater than half of the 100 top-selling vehicles within the UK have been fractionally wider than this.

Then there’s the rocketing recognition of Sports Utility Vehicles, or SUVs, vehicles which are at the least loosely based mostly on off-road autos, though in lots of circumstances the resemblance is beauty, and so they lack real off-road options corresponding to four-wheel drive.

The overwhelming majority won’t ever stray removed from the tarmac, therefore their quite derisory nickname: Chelsea tractors.

There are loads of completely different designs on the market, together with utility fashions that you could really use off street, swanky standing symbols and legions of suburban household wagons.

What all of them they’ve in frequent, nonetheless, is dimension. Even the smaller “crossover” variations, extra carefully associated to traditional vehicles, are typically taller and wider than conventional saloons, hatchbacks or estates.

Back in 2011, SUVs made up 13.2% of the market throughout 27 European nations, in response to the automotive analysis firm Dataforce GmbH. By 2025, their market share had grown to 59%.

Rachel Burgess, editor of Autocar journal, believes it’s their dimension that makes them so widespread. “Everyone I’ve spoken to over the years who has bought an SUV says they like being higher up, they like better visibility, and they feel safer on motorways and bigger roads.

“It’s usually higher for folks with children to get them out and in of the automobile with that further top; and in addition, for people who find themselves much less cellular, it is a lot simpler to get out and in of an SUV than a decrease hatchback or saloon.”

Lucia Barbato, from West Sussex, says her second-hand Lexus RX450 SUV – a hybrid model – is vital for transporting her large family in an area with limited public transport. She runs a marketing agency from home and drives her three sons to the bus stop each day, so they can go to school.

“On a Monday morning with three boys, three faculty luggage, three sports activities kits, and a trumpet thrown within the boot there is not even room within the automobile for the canine!”

The popularity of SUVs doesn’t just apply to mass-market carmakers. Porsche is famous for its sleek sports cars but the Cayenne SUV and the Macan crossover are its bestselling models.

Bentley’s Bentayga SUV accounted for 44% of its sales last year, while Lamborghini is increasingly reliant on its four-wheel drive Urus.

Put bluntly, consumers clearly love SUVs. Carmakers, meanwhile, are only too happy to meet that demand, because building bigger cars can be more profitable, argues David Leggett, editor of industry intelligence website Just Auto.

“Profit margins are usually a lot greater on bigger vehicles with greater value factors. This is essentially as a result of legal guidelines of economics in manufacturing.”

There are, he points out, fundamental costs involved in building any car – for example operating a factory, design work, and the price of the main components.

But he explains that with small cars, these costs can make up a higher proportion of the selling price.

Daniele Ministeri, senior consultant at JATO dynamics, points out that many SUVs are closely related to conventional cars, and use the same basic structures.

“For some fashions, the principle variations are restricted to components corresponding to physique fashion, suspension and seating place, permitting them to command an SUV premium value, with out comparable price will increase”, he says.

Even conventional cars have been getting bigger in some cases. Take the current VW Golf hatchback, which is 9cm wider and 22cm longer than the version on sale in the mid-1980s. It is also several hundred kilograms heavier.

“If we glance again to the early 2000s… security programmes like Euro NCAP have been simply beginning to ship the protection message to customers, smaller autos weren’t actually in a position to take up the power of a crash very effectively in any respect,” says Alex Thompson, principal safety engineer at Thatcham Research.

“As security measures have improved, a specific amount of weight needed to be added on to autos to strengthen up security compartments as a result of they weren’t that robust again then.”

“Manufacturers have needed to do issues like enhance structural crash safety, and match extra airbags,” agrees David Leggett.

“At the identical time, they wish to enhance inside cabin house and put extra options into autos, so the web result’s rising strain for greater car dimensions.”

Yet while bigger cars may be safer for their occupants, critics insist they are considerably less safe for other road users.

“Whether you are in one other automobile [or] a pedestrian, you are extra prone to be significantly injured if there is a collision with certainly one of these autos,” argues Tim Dexter, vehicles policy manager at T&E. He is also concerned about the implications for cyclists.

Research carried out in 2023 by Belgium’s Vias Institute, which aims to improve road safety, suggested that a 10cm increase in the height of a car bonnet could increase the risk of vulnerable road users being killed in a collision by 27%. T&E also highlights concerns that high bonnets can create blind spots.

Alex Thompson believes that taller, higher cars are more likely to harm pedestrians and cyclists, although he emphasises that vehicle design in recent years has “actually prioritised” protecting vulnerable road users.

Some manufacturers have, for example, fitted external airbags to their vehicles.

As for the environmental impact, the International Energy Agency has said: “Despite advances in gas effectivity and electrification, the development towards heavier and fewer environment friendly autos corresponding to SUVs, which emit roughly 20% extra emissions than a mean medium-sized automobile, has largely nullified the enhancements in power consumption and emissions achieved elsewhere on the planet’s passenger automobile fleet in current a long time.”

The move towards electric vehicles should at least mitigate emissions from daily use significantly over time, although if the electricity they use is generated from fossil sources such as gas, bigger cars may well still pollute more per vehicle than smaller ones.

And other concerns about size and weight will still apply – in fact, with electric cars generally weighing considerably more than their petrol or diesel equivalents, certain problems could be magnified.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says that 40% of SUVs are now zero-emission.

Its chief executive, Mike Hawes, has previously said that overall the carbon dioxide emissions of new SUVs have more than halved since 2000, “serving to the phase lead the decarbonisation of UK street mobility”.

But one option remains what has already been done across the Channel. France already imposes extra registration taxes on cars that weigh in at more than 1,600kg. Currently, this means a €10 (£9) penalty for every extra kilogramme. The penalty increases in bands, reaching €30 per kg above 2,100kg.

While it only applies to a relatively small proportion of current models – and electric vehicles are excluded – it can add up to €70,000 to the cost of buying a new car.

T&E argues that a similar levy should be introduced in the UK. According to Tim Dexter, “At the second the UK is a tax haven for these massive autos… We know the affect they’re having on the street, on communities, doubtlessly on people. It’s solely honest they need to be paying a bit extra.”

David Leggett believes people could potentially be encouraged to buy smaller vehicles, particularly for use in cities. “There are alternatives to tweak tax regimes to make smaller vehicles comparatively engaging,” he says.

But ensuring there are enough runabouts to go around may be tricky. “There will at all times be a marketplace for extremely manoeuvrable and low-cost metropolis vehicles in city areas, however making them profitably is a big problem,” Mr Leggett says.

However, several relatively low-priced small EVs have recently come on to the market, including BYD’s Dolphin Surf, Leapmotor International’s T03, Hyundai’s Inster and the new Renault 5. They will be joined before long by Kia’s EV2, and VW’s ID Polo.

For the moment though, SUVs remain firmly in charge.

“Clearly, folks need SUVs, and I’m unsure what the reply to that’s,” says Rachel Burgess. “But small vehicles are coming again, because the business has understood the way to make cash from small vehicles in an electrical world…

“I do believe everything is cyclical and trends come and go in every part of life, including cars. SUVs won’t be around forever.”

Top image credit score: Getty Images

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