Autobesity: The new 'killer' filling up our roads and cities

Have you heard of autobesity? It's a new term for the increasing size of cars – and like human obesity, it can be a killer. 

With each new iteration of the ever-growing SUV market, cars are getting bigger, heavier – and more lethal. That's the view of Barbara Stoll, founder and Director of Clean Cities at Transport and Environment, advocates for clean transport and energy. 

"Autobesity – also known as car spreading – is the global trend of cars getting bigger, heavier, and more powerful," she explains. 

These megacars are also getting more popular. 

"In Europe, SUV sales have ballooned," Stoll says. "So whilst in 2010, they represented about 11.5 percent of all new sales, they represented over 55 percent in 2024 – a fivefold increase. In the UK, they represent about 60 percent of all new sales." 

But how quickly are they growing in size?

"What we are seeing is that the front of the vehicles is rising one centimeter every two years – and that's also true for the width of the vehicle," Stoll says. "And so basically these giant SUVs are growing us out of our cities." 

With greater power comes greater danger – and Stoll explains why. 

"They are absolutely more dangerous – a 10 percent increase in the height of the front of the vehicle means about a 30 percent higher risk of someone getting fatally injured in a collision with an SUV," she says. 

"Not only that, but when there's a collision between two cars, if one is twice as heavy as the other, the people in the lighter car are three times more likely to be seriously injured than if the two cars were around the same weight."

Environmental drawbacks

Stoll also outlines the environmental drawbacks of these monster cars. 

"They also pollute more – 20 percent more fuel than an average car – and they're really more expensive as well, they cost about 59 percent more than a normal hatchback."

But autobesity doesn't just affect the global environment - it also dominates urban space, to the detriment of others. 

"What they do is they squeeze the rest of us out of our cities," she says. "They make pavements really difficult to navigate, they don't fit in traditional parking spaces any more and they physically take away space from things that are also needed in cities – such as greenery, such as wider pavements for pedestrians and wheelchairs and buggies to fit. They take away space from cycle lanes." 

But how would Stoll work to encourage people away from driving such huge cars? She recommends a two-fold approach: hiking charges on supercars and improving public transport. 

"You need sticks and you need carrots," she says. What Paris has done is absolutely transformational – tripling the parking charges for SUVs means there's two-thirds less SUVs now on Paris streets, which is amazing. So other cities should follow suit. 

"But not only that, you have to provide incentives for people to take advantage of the alternatives. So better and cleaner and more accessible public transport, better active mobility infrastructure – cycling pathways, pedestrianization and better pavements – and also car clubs, electric car sharing. 

"You need to give people many alternatives so they don't feel so attached to their cars."