Cars are getting wider and no longer fit the allocated road space

Research by Brussels based Transport & Environment (T&E) has found that new cars in Europe are getting 10mm wider every two years and around half of new cars are already too wide for the minimum on-street parking space in many countries.

Transport & Environment (T&E) a European umbrella organisation for non-governmental organisations working in the field of transport and the environment, says the rising sales of SUVs means the trend is likely to continue.

James Nix, Vehicles Policy Manager at T&E, said, “Cars have been getting wider for decades and that trend will continue until we set a stricter limit. Currently the law allows new cars to be as wide as trucks. The result is parking on our footpaths and endangering pedestrians, cyclists and everyone else on the road.”

Paris could be the first major European capital to tackle this trend if citizens endorse higher parking charges for SUVs in a referendum next month.

The average width of new cars expanded to 180.3 cm in the first half of 2023, up from 177.8 cm in 2018, and continuing the trend of the two decades.

New cars in the EU are subject to the same maximum width, 255 cm, as buses and trucks. T&E said that unless the EU width limit for cars is reviewed and cities impose higher parking charges, large SUVs and pick-ups will continue to expand potentially to the cap meant for trucks.

Off-street parking is now a tight squeeze even for the average new car (180 cm wide) and large luxury SUVs, measuring around 200 cm wide, leave too little space for car occupants to get in and out of vehicles in typical off-street spaces (240 cm).

Among the top 100 models in 2023, 52% of vehicles sold were too wide for the minimum specified on-street parking space (180 cm) in major cities, including London, Paris and Rome, the research finds.

The growth in size is most pronounced among large luxury SUVs. In the most egregious case the Land Rover Defender grew by 20.6 cm in just six years.