No, it's not just you: cars are getting bigger. So much so that the Institute of Chartered Engineers (ICE) has updated its guidance on parking space dimensions, increasing the minimum length from 4.8 metres to 5 metres.
In addition, the width of a parking space should be correspondingly increased from 2.4 to 2.6 metres.
Even with this new guidance for plus-sized cars, there are still a surprising number of cars – not commercial vehicles – that overshoot this guidance. Big or small, petrol or electric, discover the best cars for 2024 according to our tough lab tests The cars over 5 metres long The table below shows all cars we've tested that are available to buy new and over 5 metres long. The longest car we've tested: BMW i7 BMW's luxury electric i7 is a colossal 5.
39m long, making it the longest new car we've tested by a fair margin. It starts from a little over £94k. There's no escaping the fact that you're going to struggle to find an on-street parking space long enough to manoeuvre into (unless your embassy of choice has reserved parking for you) and you're going to stick out like a sore thumb in any bay parking space, too.
At 2.2 metres wide including wing mirrors, it's also only going to leave 20cm each side for you to actually get out if you've parked in a modern car park, and just 10cm in those that conform to the previous ICE guidance. We noted in our review, though, that this car does at least have various parking aids installed, including panoramic cameras, to.