Paris referendum

Paris to SUVs: Get off my streets! 

Paris referendum signals danger for SUV owners and the car industry.

BY TOMMASO LECCA

Campaigners are coming for SUVs — the latest blow against the bloated behemoths coming from a Sunday Paris referendum that tripled parking fees for heavy passenger cars.

It’s just one part of a much broader campaign to attack SUVs on environmental and safety grounds, and that’s causing headaches for both owners and for the car industry making them.

"The worry for manufacturers is contagion to other cities and regions rather than just the decision in Paris," said European car market analyst Matthias Schmidt.

SUVs and smaller crossovers are hugely popular (they allow people to pretend they are behind the wheel of a rugged all-terrain vehicle and not simply driving a tricked out station wagon), and that makes them very profitable for carmakers. 

The car industry earns fat profits from selling combustion engine SUVs — so much so that many manufacturers are scaling back production of smaller and less profitable cars.

Carmakers say the earnings are needed to finance the hugely expensive transition to electric vehicles, something mandated by the EU’s decision to end the sale of new combustion engine cars by 2035.

Battery-powered SUVs are also very popular, and very expensive.

"These high-riding and highly profitable vehicles, creating a high degree of commonality across the world, key for profits, is in danger of crumbling with drivers being demonized and seen as antisocial," said Schmidt. 

Measures like the one approved by Paris underline the danger to the industry.

The French capital's crackdown on sport utility vehicles follows the same path already taken by smaller cities such as Lyon or Tübingen, and could put pressure on local governments considering penalizing SUVs with additional fees, such as London, Brussels and Amsterdam. 

Countries are also moving to penalize SUVs. “France, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland already vary national car taxes according to weight, and Estonia plans to do so from 2025,” said James Nix, vehicles policy manager at green NGO Transport & Environment.

The proposed parking fee hike received 55 percent support in Sunday’s referendum, although only 6 percent of the French capital’s 1.3 million residents took part. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a member of the Socialist Party, insists Parisians made “a very clear choice,” and that the outcome of the vote must now be respected.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo insists Parisians made “a very clear choice,” and that the outcome of the vote must now be respected | Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images

The new prices — up to €225 for six hours of parking in the center of Paris — will take effect in September.

"Bravo Paris!" said Dudley Curtis, spokesperson for the European Transport Safety Council. 

"Cities should be designed for people to move around safely, especially when they choose healthier, less damaging modes of transport such as walking and cycling or taking public transport," Curtis added. 

He said: "Heavier vehicles that crash are more likely to kill the occupants of normal-sized vehicles as well as cyclists and pedestrians."

According to a recent study by Transport & Environment, a campaign group, new cars are getting 1 cm wider every two years.

"A 10 cm increase in the height of vehicle fronts carries a 30 percent higher risk of fatalities in collisions with pedestrians and cyclists," said Nix.

But those worries aren’t scaring off buyers.

In September, SUVs accounted for 54 percent of new car registrations in Europe; it’s even higher for EVs, with SUVs accounting for 60 percent fully electric cars and 74 percent of plug-in hybrids, according to a recent analysis by JATO Dynamics.

Legal restrictions could undermine the attraction of SUVs.

"Just as the world appeared to have consolidated its global appetite for one type of vehicle, SUV/Crossovers, that could be in danger of self-combusting if other cities or regions follow France," Schmidt warned.

Although the industry says it needs SUV sales, skeptics worry about the environmental impact of making such large cars — whether powered by fossil fuels or by electricity. 

“The fundamental problem is that today the car industry produces these very large SUVs. The SUV is not the future, the future of transport in the EU is the small EV,” said Karima Delli of the French Greens, chair of the European Parliament’s transport committee.

"The EU certainly needs to look urgently at how to encourage the industry to make lighter, smaller cars because the path we are on — simply replacing SUVs with even-heavier electric SUVs — is just not sustainable, or safe," Curtis said.