There's something very fishy about this claim, I happen to own a European car from the year 2000 so I just went out to the garage and measured it, just to be sure, and it's still exactly the same length as it was when it was brand new.
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Did you measure from the car's asshole?
Did you make sure not to use the cars built-in measurement utility? That would have grown too, you know…
My car really is from the year 2000, far too old to have any built-in measurement utility.
Damn… it got to the external ones too.
Not only longer but also wider and taller… it’s an obesity pandemic that has blown over from the US.
Can someone prescribe some ozempic to these cars?
Wait, it's contagious!?!?
Safety regulations require things like better crumple zones. The seating areas aren't significantly larger.
Nah that’s not just it. People used to drive sedans and hatchbacks, now everyone and their mother has an SUV
It's all related. You can't add a thousand pounds of safety equipment and larger crumple zones and make a full size sedan that consistently gets 40+ mpg.
Companies pivoted to the SUV because it didn't have to have absurdly good fuel efficiency, and people liked being "bigger" despite often having less space than full size sedans.
There’s no reason to make it worse just because it’s already a bit bad. Hatchbacks and sedans still exist and they really don’t have anywhere near 1000lbs of extra safety equipment.
It’s just a trend that blew over from the US. Here is some more info.
Not sure about the accuracy of this, my car is still the same length as it was ten years ago.
You're the exception that proves the rule.
Mine got 8cm shorter when the rear bumper fell off. So, it's safer.
I don't think that's very typical
At least the front didn't fall off.
I imagine you driving.


Stop giving it junk food.
Mine is a smart car. I need a pill to make it grow into a suburban.
Cars do not grow. Don't listen to this guy. My car is the same size as when I bought it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, always one or two nay sayers. You people are so sure of yourselfs.
I thought it was more of a grower vs shower dynamic?
Don't you water it regularly?
Water? Not for AI datacenters? In this economy?
Sometimes it's not growing by itself. Don't put too much pressure on that issue and enjoy just the other aspects of it.
This just illustrates the importance of hiring a professional to trim back the cars periodically. You could do it yourself, but the heavy industrial equipment necessary for routine gardening like this is just too bulky and expensive for the average person to be able to use.
I don't want to make my engine bleed. It squirmed the last time I tried to do it myself and I ended up nicking the engine and it leaked eveywhere.
What are they feeding them?!
mcchickens
The length is bad but the 0.5cm extra width per year strikes me as much worse. There's a lot of room for longer vehicles than the average cars of yesteryear - vans and light trucks have always been around. But those vehicles tended to only be slightly wider, if at all, in order to fit into lanes on the road, parking spaces, through gateways and so on. Half a centimetre wider per year is insane.
I would hope countries will just stop approving cars as road legal if they are too wide to fit on the roads.
I do occasionally see the odd range rover in the Netherlands. It's always hilariously out of place, and of course does not fit in any single parking space here. But they have to drive around with a special license plate for import vehicles, apparently it's fine then.
How about the dumbshits that import Ram trucks there? Recently read an article about it. I dunno how any of you guys could drive our pickup trucks at all there.
Oh yes actually it's ram trucks I was thinking of, I dont think range rovers are that absurdly big. Still big, just less.
There are loads here, and I immediately think that whoever's driving it is a bad person.
Where's "here"?
You can work it out from my other posts but I don't go around advertising it when I can help it...
Does this mean cars have plate tectonics?
Some of this is safety equipment and more recently batteries and hybrid equipment, which takes up space. Some of this is simply design and aesthetics.
I have a small Peugeot e-208. You don’t need some massive SUV to go electric. Renault 5 is another small example. There are electric sedans available too.
My hybrid Suzuki Ignis (ugliest car on the planet) is smaller than my Suzuki Swift, which is supposed to be a small car.
To be fair, people have been complaining that here are too many cars in the cities for a long time. By making the cars bigger you naturally decrease the number of cars per area!
A lot is extra safety features. It would be illegal to sell the original mini today.
I remember that my parents car still didn't have seat belts in the back when I was a kid...
If they're going to make these cars that grow longer every year, are they also going to build garages that get longer too? In my day, cars stayed the same length for the whole time you owned them. I suppose it's good for parents that have growing teenagers and need more leg room in the back.
Consumer appeal for bigger vehicles tracks with historical weight gain.

Also, the number of burglaries in new Hampshire is dropping as there are less and less kids named Johnny