2mo ago

Limit new car dimensions by 2035: proposal from civil society to the EU

Civil society calls on the EU to limit new car dimensions by 2035

30 associations are proposing to the European Commission to impose a limit on the size of new cars, in particular the total width and bonnet.

A report connected with this request showed that the average bonnet height of newly-sold cars in Europe is increasing by 0.5 cm a year.

Many studies showed that bigger cars and higher bonnets are related to more collisions, and worse outcome for pedestrians and cyclists (and those in smaller cars), especially in regards to children

Those SUVs are kid crushers, they shouldn’ be on our roads

crossposed from: https://mastodon.uno/users/rivoluzioneurbanamobilita/statuses/114674420551539891

Europe @europe.pub

tfm @europe.pub

2mo ago

Limit new car dimensions by 2035: proposal from civil society to the EU

etsc.eu /civil-society-calls-on-the-eu-to-limit-new-car-dimensions-by-2035/

Fuck Cars @lemmy.world

lgsp@feddit.it @feddit.it

2mo ago

Limit new car dimensions by 2035: proposal from civil society to the EU

etsc.eu /civil-society-calls-on-the-eu-to-limit-new-car-dimensions-by-2035/

89 comments

PLEASE put a stop to insane car sizes. I'm from the US and our cars, SUVs, and trucks have gotten so huge it would be humorous if not for the thousands of extra children it's killing each year.
In the words of the Australian health minister: is it how the US is doing it? Don't do that.
- Those kind of cars are not really popular in Europe as the streets here are narrow and don't follow grid patterns. A lot of countries also already have regulations that limit what cars are road legal. That's why you will not see a Cybertruck on the road in Europe, they have too many sharp edges and no crumple zones which makes them not road legal.
  
  What??
  \ (This sounds like something someone who has never been to Europe would say.)
  Europe is being absolutely flooded with SUVs and even pickups (supply/marketing pressure + ego imho, bcs such cars are more profitable for manufacturers even when they are lower quality). And yes, we have a couple of Cybertrucks too.
  Also most the poshest SUVs sold in USA are European models.
  The dumpsters from at least two EU countries:
  Additionally, here are new car registrations in 2024 - most of the cars (50.7%, 7 million cars) were some sort of SUVs (so the front part of the car is higher than it needs to be):
  
  Would be nice if true!
  Of course you are technically correct. There are more giantic cars in the US than in Europe.
  Nonetheless the avarage European car gets bigger every year – that's the point of the original post – and they are already too big for our cities.
  
  And yet Dodge Rams are endemic in Netherlands cities where they have to take up two parking spaces and can't fit down some roads
  
  That's why you will not see a Cybertruck on the road in Europe.
  That was the initial reason, now there's also the Nazi reason and the crappy car reason.
  
  Both very good points and grounded in reality, though my attitude is more about the general public being stupid more than the general public recognizing the limits of the roads or even the law.
  https://etsc.eu/sales-of-dangerous-us-pickup-trucks-up-20-in-europe/
  The uptick in people leveraging the individual registrations is a canary in the coal mine. People want to have giant wasteful crap. At least some people do. If enough people start having big trucks and SUVs on the road, the demand to make allowances for them grows. Can you knock down the old Regensburg medieval city for SUVs? Unlikely. Can you start making more suburban style roads and land wasteful areas outside of the downtown? Most assuredly.
  I'm hoping smarter and more reasonable heads prevail in the EU. I don't care what people want on this front. The car makers want to sell huge killing machines since they're higher profit per unit. There's at least some people wanting to buy them. The protection of pedestrians, the environment, and the city itself from terrible infrastructure designed to accommodate these trash machines should win out if at all possible.
- Addendum: There's a new car coming out in the US. It's a 6 seater that's 5.8 meters long and is around 8000 lbs. Two of them are the same size as a normal city bus. TWO cars == a fucking BUS.
  DO NOT DO WHAT THE US IS DOING.
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d_yoeXBCRjs
When I see the rising popularity of those Ram or F150 monstrosities in small (sub) urban areas it makes me cry for humanity a bit
- It makes me cry a lot. I live in an urban part of Germany and there used to be 0 Pickup trucks in my residential area but in the last few years a bunch of those popped up. There are no parking lots those things fit onto and I only ever the them pulling a small trailer, the loading bed is never used. And one of them has a Confederate Flag on it...
  
  The Confederate Flag thing is just laughable. I will never understand why some Europeans are so hung up on American politics.
  In Amsterdam there was one of those pickups parked partly on tram rails. Imagine being that much of a prick.
- This is anecdotal but there are several new Ram ♈ giant monster trucks in my corner of rural France (as well Mustangs, Camaros, etc.). These are not work vehicles. They are kept spotlessly clean. The owners most likely drive a tractor in their day job. Also there are giant Fiat trucks, which I can understand even less. So many narrow streets around here. I suppose they are symbolic icons in the mind of the drivers.
  
  While I support smaller truck size, I'm so tired of hearing clean truck == unused. It's such a lazy way to stereotype a population.
They need to bring back the sporty station wagon/estate. Visibility is better while having the same cargo space as an SUV
The only low nose electric station wagon you can buy today is a Porsche Taycan and that one is not a true station wagon. Since the back is more like a hot hatch.
- Audi Avant?
- Volkswagen ID7 Tourer?
- The only low nose electric station wagon you can buy today is a Porsche Taycan
  No, id7? MG5?
- Subaru should bring back the legacy wagon and return the Outback to its bubbly premium sibling. They spilled look exactly the same as they did in the 90s but with modern safety features and better gas mileage. Bonus points if you can get it with a tape deck.
  That would be the best car for basically everyone.
- What makes you say the Taycan Cross/Sport Turismo isn't a true station wagon? Certainly has the utility of one, and markedly more rear cargo space than most hatchbacks
  I have one so hopefully I don't sound overly defensive, it's awesome enough that any technicality would be silly to actually quibble over. Just friendly curiosity about the thought!
  Edit just to say: the station wagon/estate is the pinnacle of passenger car design, I absolutely adore them and deeply wish we had more of them and fewer crossovers or SUVs
- Opel Astra Sports Tourer Electric
- Nio, Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Jaguar, VW, Genesis, Zeekr, MG, Smart, and even SwastiCar have options that offer a lot of trunk space while maintaining visibility.
  We should ban 4-wheeled tanks from cities though.
- SUVs typically have less cargo space than SWs
  An electric SUV is the stupidest thing. They have shit range. There's an electric SW from Nio with 1000 km of range.
- They need to bring back the sporty station wagon/estate.
  Or "soccer mom" cars, there's very little on minivan market today at least here in Finland. My wallet says that I don't drive fully electric for quite some time but about a year ago we had to get rid of our Toyota Previa (too expensive repairs were needed) and there just isn't too much to pick from. With 3 kids and a dog we just can't fit the whole circus in a VW Golf and there's less and less cheap used cars on that category. Sure, if you throw 30-40k€ to the table then you can get a newer VW Caravelle or MB Viano, but below 5k there just isn't much to choose from. Currently we have Mitsubishi Grandis but with all 7 seats there's not much room for luggage.
  We used to have E-class Mercedes (S210) and it could easily fit the whole family (with child seats) and have plenty of room in the trunk for the dog and luggage, but if you try to seat 3 nearly adult sized kids on the Grandis the middle row seat alone is really not comfortable for multi-hour trip. And it's pretty much the same for all the station wagons we've had over the years. Sure, we've had a lot of them, but I think it's better for not just my wallet to get old ones and drive them "to the end".
  But even if we use bigger cars none of them has a bonnet you need a ladder to reach. Grandis, Previa, Hyundai Trajet, Renault Espace and Peugeot 807 all had very rounded front end and "normal" height bumpers. That makes services a bit more pain in the rear, but you can easily see what's going on in front of your vehicle.
These sort of decisions, like with phasing out petrol products, could have been made on much shorter timelines.
\ Like, everyone would survive if starting tomorrow you couldn't buy an SUV or a pickup any more, or a car longer than 5m or whatever.
Industries are overall more expensive for everyone if you give them 10 year timelines to limit something that is killing people & destroying the environment (which is just 10 years of lobbying anyway). It also helps concentrate wealth even more on the count of public safety & wellbeing.
Countless industries have to adapt to sudden changes all the time. Only the truly powerful industries/megacorps don't have to bcs lobby magic.
- And another issue: We are currently seeing politics reversing the planned "bans" (which are not really bans) on petrol engines. So if you're doing a phasing out of something, you have to ensure that no lobbying effort will be successful in the years until your ban starts. You have to ensure that no corrupt rightwing government, no "conservative" party "friendly" to companies and no Trump will gain power in the meantime.
  
  Yes, prolonging the status quo is one of the most common lobby tactics, and the most successful.
  That's why we have petrol based plastic recycling instead of naturally degradable plastics.
I call on the EU to limit new cars, period. Public transport needs ti be massively improved and made cheaper everywhere. Buying cars should be limited to those who actually need them, like disabled people, vehicles for transporting goods and such.
- Limiting sucks. If we try to get shit done by taking away, it'll never happen. No limiting.
  But there seems to be an interesting phenomenon in between public transit and driving. Like if you have a popular destination with shitty public transit, it'll take a ton of time to get there by car due to congestion.
  So make public transit go brrr, maybe slap some extra tax on vehicles, and see people abandon cars in favor of a working public transport by themselves, without any external limiting factors.
  
  Just do what we do here, and have like, six parking spots at a beach, and ticket anyone who parks illegally. It encourages bike and bus use :)
- Year on year, the number of cars on the road keeps growing. There's simply not enough space to add new roads, so traffic is slowly growing to a complete halt. Limiting the number of cars is one of the only ways to keep cars viable. You could have licenses based on need, for sale and by lottery. If it becomes harder to get a car, more people will organise themselves to not need a car. And it would make the demand for car sharing explode.
Just don't adjust parking spaces and fine them for overflowing it. The problem will solve its self very quickly then.
- The problem is height not necessarily length or width.
  I'd also add some limits on weight or a way to push manfucaturers to make lighter cars. Lethality increases with the mass of the vehicle as well. Average car is 400kg heavier than it was 8 years ago. All the extra mileage wasted on carrying leather couches just to be more lethal when we get into accidents
  
  Much more road wear as weight increases too
  
  Not only that. I would make emissions regulations universal instead of separated by car categories. I would only allow larger cars if you really have a need for them such as a large family or work, etc
stops working on his 4th dimensional car
I swear...
Seriously need to get on this, Monaco was a snoozefest
- kek
  New sustainability rule: two tyre changes every time you commute to work 👍
- They just need to introduce a special Monaco spec’ed, remove the electric engine and batteries and they can make a shorter car.
- Unless you see all the top racing series de-escalate the aero and drop speeds, it's not going to happen. F1 ain't going to let Indy or wec/IMSA make a faster car.
Sometimes I love the EU.
- Slow down your love: this is just a proposal from a bunch of associations. On the other side there are car industry lobbies and their enormous profit margins, which are particularly strong. Let's see what happens
- I almost always do.
  Car regulation isn't an area I'm particularity proud of tho, but it isn't stagnant.
  Imho EU does a really good job on preparing regulations, get every stakeholders groups opinion, think through the reporting (which is ofc always a chore, but otherwise laws are useless/unenforceable/unchecked, and you miss out on major decision-making market data, or early warnings), and then constantly gathering info & holding meetings on how to evolve the legislation for the next iteration (once you have data you can see what was over- and under-kill, or what was missed & what new things/outside changes affect the market).
I have a simple Toyota Yaris, I manage to put INSIDE it my huge e-mountainbike (29" wheels, 30+ kg, that thing looks like a tank) and my inflatable 2-seat kayak, along with a suitcase and safety equipment, when I go on vacation.
This might look a bit extreme, but on the other hand SUV people should need to realize they don't need 5 cubic meters of air around them to go from point A to point B
- If you fit that in a Yaris, you have to acknowledge that you are a god among men.
  Plus, SUV do not have as much space as people like to believe compared to a sedan (as the bedframe is the same as a car in most occasions).
  
  To be fair, I'm alone in the car. The kayak (deflated in a bag) sits on the passenger seat and the paddles go diagonally across the car, but it's fairly easy to fit it all
Hm. Don't know.
This one?
Yeah, can be banned.
But this one?
Don't know. While it's a fair bit shorter than an f150, it's still a big-ass car. But is it an unethical car? It fits a lot of stuff or a lot of people or a fair amount of both, but I guess the same thing is true for the f150. Visibility is much better I guess, but would pick ups be more moral if they had a lower hood?
Like, yeah, I hate pick ups, too, but what's their defining aspect? What's the law that gets rid of large SUVs but keeps station wagons? Or is the law just going to get rid of all larger cars?
I'm not trying to argue against the idea of banning dick comparison cars, this is a genuine question.
- What's the law that gets rid of large SUVs but keeps station wagons? Or is the law just going to get rid of all larger cars?
  We've had station wagons for a very long time now. A big Ford Mondeo we had was a relatively low car, without an enormous bonnet.
  Cars continue to get wider, longer and higher off the ground (there's this Kia that looks like you're driving around in a fridge), whilst the stuff we move within them isn't exactly increasing. it's just bigger for the sake of being bigger, and that's causing issues in the streets.
  
  it's just bigger for the sake of being bigger
  Not true for every car. Small cars get bigger, too, but because nowadays there are way more safety features built in. Side impact protection needs space, too, for example. Also, especially smaller cars get more roomy and comfortable, too (except the Twingo, for some reason).
  That being said: fuck SUVs and trucks. They're much bigger than they need to be and just status symbols.
  
  We've had station wagons for a very long time now. A big Ford Mondeo we had was a relatively low car, without an enormous bonnet.
  Cars continue to get wider, longer and higher off the ground (there's this Kia that looks like you're driving around in a fridge), whilst the stuff we move within them isn't exactly increasing. it's just bigger for the sake of being bigger, and that's causing issues in the streets.
  You are missing my point. To turn this into a law, there need to be clear rules of what is or isn't allowed.
  The Kia you're talking about is this one I guess? The EV5?
  Unfortunately, the size comparison site I used doesn't have that, but it is apparently similar to their "Sportage" SUV, so I took the long wheel base version of that one to compare it against your old Mondeo...
  ... which is longer than the SUV...
  ... and only 5cm less wide ...
  whilst the stuff we move within them isn't exactly increasing
  ... and has much less cargo volume.
  So, what kind of rules do you come up with to get rid of the one but not the other? Height? Then what about the vans? And how is height making a car more or less unethical?
  So far, the 3.5 ton weight limit seems to have worked well for keeping the most ridiculous American cars off European streets. But it seems that's not enough, so what other rules could be used to define which cars shouldn't be allowed to drive around? It's obviously not weight because we already have that. It's apparently not the size because despite most arguments, SUVs aren't always much bigger than other cars that are usually perceived as fine. So what is it??
  
  It's utterly bizarre, I'm looking to replace a Mondeo estate some time in the next couple of years. Frankly, SUVs are not a viable alternative - they have no boot space, they are less functional by a long chalk in that regard.
- But is it an unethical car? It fits a lot of stuff or a lot of people or a fair amount of both, but I guess the same thing is true for the f150. Visibility is much better I guess, but would pick ups be more moral if they had a lower hood?
  some thoughts about your post
  nobody would buy a van if not in need, because it's not cool, it costs more etc. So you would end up having less big vehicles on the road. There is no need to regulate too much something that is numerically not important
  the hood height for the van is lower and visibility is better: you can find a lot of studies that connect the former with less killings and less serious injuries and the latter with less collisions, so definitely less dangerous
  i actually think that if pickups had lower hoods, they would be more moral, yes, because they would be less dangerous. (see above)
  
  i actually think that if pickups had lower hoods, they would be more moral, yes, because they would be less dangerous. (see above)
  Fair point. I agree.
  I always assumed that the bonnet height was one of the reasons why you couldn't really drive one of those in Europe anyway. But if that's not the case then yes, adjusting that should be done.
  (Also I drive a van and I think it's cool since obviously I'm cool and so my car kinda has to be, too, so I'm not sure if I agree with your first point.)
CanyonerNO
I recently read Stellantis wants to push for Kei car regulations in the EU. I'll take a used Nissan Pao.
I do love seeing car parking spaces get tighter and tighter. The bigger the cars, the less road and parking there is go around. Unlike the US, European cities will not be demolishing themselves to make room. The future is not cars.
Limit new cars by 2026, there, fixed it.
@lgsp@feddit.it
FC: @EUCommission
@europe
I really hope they include a maximum volume.
The giant camper vans that are within a cm of each maximum size that already exists, driven on a normal car license by people who have never driven something larger than a VW Golf is terrible.
Too bad that'll never happen, would be too unpopular politically.
- You're right. For further illustration, go do a web search for "kei car". The shape of these things is entirely driven by Japanese regulation that gives cars with limited size/weight/motorization certain tax/usage advantages. There are very few of these cars on Japanese roads that are not space-maximizing boxy microvans.

89 comments