What does NRC think | Thicker cars take up too much public space

In 1970, European car journalists chose the Fiat 128 as Car of the Year. That model, type of cookie tin, was 385 centimeters long and 159 centimeters wide. The weight? Around 750 kilograms. The winner of 2022, the Kia EV6, is 468 centimeters long, 188 centimeters wide and weighs, without passengers, 1,875 kilos.

To see that passenger cars have expanded in recent decades, you do not have to do a deep -growing investigation. In the 1980s, entire families still folded without grumbling in a modest Renault 5, Opel Kadett or Citroën Visa, now a traveling business driver only opts for a SUV for an SUV that fits half a football team with luggage. Even classic compact models, such as the Fiat 500, the Mini or Die Renault 5, have been pumped firmly in their reintroduction – electrically or not – in recent years.

Passenger cars, showed the CBS this weeksince 2016, have roughly an inch wider and four centimeters longer every two years. But the biggest difference is in weight. Weighed the average passenger car in 2015 1,160 kilograms, now that is 1,254 kilos. Business cars now on average even weigh 1,517 kilos. Speaking action groups of ‘autobesitas’ rightfully. Heavy cars use more energy (fossil or not) than light cars and are therefore more polluting anyway. Large cars are difficult to fit in parking spaces and block the passage in narrow streets. The fact that Dutch people who need extra space in cars is difficult to sustain: in 1970, the year of the Fiat the size of a double bed, women had an average of 2.52 child, in 2022 the birth rate was 1.49.

Part of the autographs is paradoxically together with the energy transition. Because of the large battery packages, electric and hybrid cars are needed for a comfortable range, now much heavier than cars with merely a combustion engine. A plug car from 2024 weighed an average of 1,875 kilos, says the CBS. But petrol cars have also grown considerably in recent years. European producers have made a name for himself with compact cars, perfectly fitting in the narrow streets of medieval cities. The trend to trade it in for ‘autopia’ America over -muscular models that also dates back to the large rise of the electric car. Already in 2004, well before the first Tesla went on the Dutch road, wrote NRC mockingly about the advance of the ‘PC Hoofttractor’.

Large, high and therefore heavy cars would be safer, the buyers say. They are only for the passengers. Other road users, cyclists and pedestrians in particular are more vulnerable. Even with collisions between two cars, the chance of serious injuries in the lighter car is much greater according to Belgian research. Certainly in a country with many cyclists, safety is not a good argument to choose such a car for such a car.

Everyone is of course free to buy the car that he or she finds beautiful or safe. But in times when the struggle for the public space is at the top of the political agenda, it is understandable if governments take measures to encourage consumers to choose a model that takes less of that space. In Paris, SUV riders are now paying more for parking on the street, throughout France the tax has risen considerably when the purchase of a heavy car has risen. Such useful measures must guide and encourage consumers to more modest cars and in passing the car industry to continue to invest in smaller, energy-efficient models.

To share

Mail the editors