The impacts on safety, space and resource use if carspreading continues to go unchecked.
The average size of newly-sold cars keeps increasing every year. New T&E and Clean Cities analysis shows that:
• The average length of new cars keeps increasing by 1.2 cm a year
• Their average height keeps rising by 0.5 cm a year
These new findings complement previous work showing that new cars keep getting 0.5 cm wider every year (2024), and that bonnet height keeps increasing by 0.5 cm every year (2025).
Car size at a crossroads: the current ever-bigger trend v. vehicle right-sizing
This study compares two scenarios for car dimensions over the period 2026 to 2040. Under the prevailing ever-bigger trend (‘Current trend’), the average size of new cars continues to increase in line with trends since 2000. Under a more balanced scenario (‘Right-sizing’), the average size of new cars steadily returns to 2015 levels. Key findings for the period 2026-2040:
• Parking: Cities are set to lose 8.5% - 14% of their end-to-end on-street parking spaces by 2040 if the current ever-bigger trend prevails
• Safety: There are around 2,600 additional deaths of vulnerable road users by following the current ever-bigger trend, including 79 children. (By 2040, the increase in deaths of children walking widens to 40%.) (....)