Paris raised parking fees for SUVs. Now cities like London have been taken into account

Parisians have voted to increase parking fees on large SUVs – and they're not the only European city to set its sights on heavier, more polluting cars.

In a referendum held in Paris last month, nearly 55% voted in favor of imposing a fixed parking rate for non-residents for SUVs. However, with a turnout of 5.7%, the poll represented only a small percentage of the capital's electoral list.

Under the measure, drivers will pay up to 18 euros ($19.54) per hour to park in central Paris, and 12 euros per hour in the wider city. The higher duties will apply to SUVs weighing more than 1.6 metric tons that are hybrid or have a combustion engine, as well as electric SUVs weighing more than 2 metric tons.

“What happens in Paris usually doesn’t stay in Paris,” according to Jens Müller, deputy director and head of policy and research at the Clean Cities campaign group.

He told CNBC there was a good chance other cities would follow suit, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo agreed, saying after the vote: “Parisians have made a clear choice… Other cities will follow.”

This comes as sales of SUVs continue to rise, with the International Energy Agency noting that “the shift towards heavier, less fuel-efficient conventional vehicles increases growth in both oil demand and carbon dioxide emissions.” Global carbon emissions from vehicles approached one billion tons in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

SUVs remain popular because of their extra seating, storage space, and higher driver position. Meanwhile, Edmund King, head of AA in the UK, told The Times that there are “safety reasons why cars are made larger”.

“Vehicle safety has improved significantly thanks to Euro NCAP, [a safety standard] “This means that modern vehicles have crash zones, pedestrian protection, and many airbags, all of which add volume.”

However, data suggests that many of these large cars are registered to homes in urban areas – causing a problem in already congested cities. Analysis of new car registrations in the UK by campaign group Badvertising in 2021 showed that three quarters of SUVs sold in 2019-2020 were registered at urban addresses.

Cities in Europe are starting to take notice.

The vote in Paris followed in the footsteps of the French city of Lyon, which had already announced a similar policy. It plans to impose higher parking fees for heavy vehicles, which is scheduled to come into effect next June.

Meanwhile, the French city of Grenoble has already implemented a higher green parking tariff for heavy vehicles, and a spokesperson for the Bordeaux mayor's office told CNBC that the city and its mayor are “in the process of thinking about the issue of taxing SUVs.”

In Germany, the southern city of Tübingen implemented a six-fold increase in the cost of annual parking permits for residents to €180 for combustion engine vehicles weighing more than 1.8 metric tons. While Hannover's mayor, Bilet Unai, told CNBC following the vote in Paris that his city “will also have to confront the question of how we deal with vehicles that take up more space.”

It's a nod to the fact that pollution isn't the only potential problem with SUVs, as space and safety are also a concern. The Transport and Environment Campaign Group, which runs the Clean Cities campaign, found that new cars in Europe are getting 1cm wider every two years on average. Large luxury SUVs, which are about 200cm wide, now leave very little space for people to get in and out of other vehicles in typical off-street parking spaces, the group said.

Meanwhile, a study by the Vias Institute in Belgium, released in August, found that the risk of fatal injuries increases by 30% if a pedestrian or cyclist is hit by a car with a bonnet 10cm higher than average. a

Before the Paris referendum, London Mayor Sadiq Khan suggested he would monitor the effectiveness of policies. However, a spokesperson for Khan said via email that the mayor does not have the ability to charge fees for SUV parking, and has no plans to do so.

The moves in mainland Europe could be of particular interest to the UK, with the Transport and Environment Agency noting that the country taxes petrol SUVs at a much lower rate than other countries in Europe. The campaign group said this could make the UK a “tax haven” for these larger, more polluting cars.

It comes as SUV sales continue to rise in the UK, rising by more than a fifth between 2022 and 2023, according to research by T&E, with SUVs making up 60% of all new car registrations last year. The group warned that this could “blow a hole” in the UK's carbon targets, given most are petrol and diesel, plug-in hybrids or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Rezina Chowdhury, deputy leader of Lambeth Council in London, told CNBC that she was “watching with enthusiasm what happened in Paris.”

She explained that Lambeth Council in London introduced emissions-based charging last year and that the next step would look at volume-based charging. “It is wrong to have these huge vehicles in the city,” Chowdhury said.