SUVs and EVs are being unfairly blamed for being a major cause of road damage, experts say, as the state of Tarmac across the UK continues to deteriorate.
Over the past nine years, the mean average kerb weight of new cars has increased by almost 400kg, from 1553kg to 1947kg.
Last year, the average weight of cars road tested by Autocar was 2024kg. Of the 73 cars tested, the most common body type by far was SUVs and the most common fuel type electric.
This increase in weight, allied to the growth in the numbers of SUVs and EVs, has led critics of the vehicles to accuse them of damaging roads, and some city councils, including those of London and Cardiff, to consider imposing additional parking charges on them.
In a recent blog published by the Institute of Civil Engineers, Elizabeth Orchard, director of infrastructure consultancy Endelevu, claimed that EVs are a factor in the formation of potholes.
"Roads are designed to withstand a certain number of heavy vehicles during their lifetime," she wrote. "As vehicles - especially EVs - become heavier, the wear per vehicle increases. More damage occurs more quickly, reducing the lifespan of the road."
However, Ali Rahman, assistant professor at the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Leeds, believes some criticism overstates the damaging effects of such vehicles.
"We don't want to blame only heavier cars for the damage," he said. "The fourth power law shows that road damage increases proportionately with axle load. If, for instance, a vehicle's axle load doubles, the damage to the road doesn't double but increases by about 16 times.
"Heavy goods vehicles [HGVs] are the principal cause of road damage. One HGV can cause the same damage as many thousands of car journeys.
"Combined with other factors acting together - climate change, water ingress and delays in road maintenance - it is why SUVs and EVs cannot be singled out for damaging roads."
In March, the Asphalt Industry Alliance said local authorities in England and Wales faced a record £18.62 billion backlog of carriageway repairs that would take 12 years to clear.
It added that 16% of local roads - equivalent to more than 32,500 miles - were reported to have less than five years' structural life remaining.
Later in the year, the government announced a £7.3 billion spending package for roads maintenance over four years to 2030. It also tightened the rules around how councils spend the money to ensure it's used effectively.
In her blog post Orchard explained that the most common cause of potholes in the UK is the action of vehicles passing over the road in combination with the annual freeze-thaw cycle.
"The UK's climate is perfect for pothole formation," she wrote. "Winter temperatures often sit around 0deg C - warm enough for rain but cold enough for freezing soon after. This means the freeze-thaw cycle can repeat many times in a single week, sometimes several times in one day.
"When rainwater seeps into these cracks and freezes, it expands, pushing stones apart and weakening the 'icing' [top] layer. Furthermore, the bitumen becomes brittle and snaps at cold temperatures. As vehicles pass over the weakened area, the material breaks away and a pothole begins to form."
Rahman said "climate change is causing the most damage at the moment", as increasingly hot weather also melts the top layer of bitumen below the road surface.
The Electric Vehicle Association England, which has 7000 members, said claims that EVs damage roads more than ICE cars are inaccurate and based on myth.
CEO Vicky Edmonds, a former head of the governmental Office for Low Emission Vehicles, said: "I do not accept that EVs are destroying roads. They're still passenger cars and not heavy trucks. It's traffic volume that destroys the roads."
Edmonds added that with the continuing development of batteries, EVs are expected to become lighter in the future - while smaller and lighter new models are already arriving.
These include the Renault Twingo E-Tech, with a kerb weight of 1200kg, and the Dacia Spring 100 Expression, at 976kg.
"EVs are still an emerging technology which is constantly evolving," said Edmonds.