Do Electric Cars REALLY Catch Fire More Than Gas Cars?
Share
A while ago I made a video about race tracks banning EVs and hybrids from tracks because of how their fires are difficult to put out.
Of course that sparked a conversation about whether EVs catch fire more often or not with lots of conjecture from both the pro and anti EV camps.
And since the truth is often stranger than fiction, I wanted to dive into it and get to the facts of the matter and find out truly whether EVs are as dangerous as the media portrays them.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-iwx8NQDoVE?si=PH5stmSgWFQB1pkd" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Are EVs Dangerous?
If you watch the news these days, you will see story after story about EVs catching fire in an inferno that you could swear is a national emergency. Tesla’s, Chevy Bolts, and more are breathlessly covered in excruciating detail.
That non stop coverage has made it seem like stepping into an EV is the single most dangerous thing you could do.
But is it?
EV VS ICE
Let’s start with the difference between an EV and an ICE engine so we can understand the risks.
When you think about it, an internal combustion engine basically runs on tiny, controlled explosions thousands of times per minute. Those explosions are fueled and lubricated by two flammable liquids stored within the car.
So obviously because no matter how perfectly you build things reality has a way of making things messy, and because things like car wrecks exist, those flammable liquids have a tendency to get outside the tanks and ignite.
Now what about EVs? Well, clearly they don’t have gas and they don’t run on explosions, they run on battery power. But most EV batteries contain lithium, graphite, and a liquid electrolyte all of which are combustable.
When an EV battery overheats or is damaged or punctured, it can short circuit and combust.
Here’s the difference: With an oil or gas fire it takes about 300 to 1,000 gallons of water to extinguish, and once the fire’s out, it’s done and unlikely to start again.
EV fires on the other hand require over 30,000 gallons of water because they’re chemical reactions.
Suppressing the Fire
See a fire needs three things: Fuel, Oxygen, and heat to start and continue burning.
In an internal combustion engine the water stops the fire from consuming oxygen to burn and cools the material. It doesn’t take as much water to do that. Once the fire is out it would need an external heat source or a spark to reignite.
In an EV the fuel source is the chemicals and components in the battery itself and as long as these chemicals are reacting, heat is being generated internally and the fire will keep burning.
Even if if you extinguish it, the chemicals can keep reacting continuing to produce heat and start the fire up again even up to days later.
That’s why it takes so much more water to extinguish and why the fires are so dangerous.
The recommended practice right now is to dump the car into a body of water which cuts off the supply of oxygen, which isn’t exactly environmentally friendly.
So EV fires are more dangerous, but are they more common?
Estimates by the Phosphorous, Inorganic & Nitrogen Flame Retardants Association reported 55 fires per billion miles travelled in ICE vehicles and five fires per billion for EVs.
That’s a big difference. According to their data, Internal combustion engines are 11 times more likely to catch fire than EVs.
What about hybrids? They have flammable liquids and chemical catalysts.
Analyists from AutoInsuranceEZ examined data from the National Transportation Safety Board on the number of car fires and compared it to sales data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Hybrid-powered cars were involved in about 3,475 fires per every 100,000 sold. Gasoline-powered cars were about 1,530. EVs only accounted for 25 fires per 100,000 sold.
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) reported that in 2022 there were 23 fires in 611,000 EVs. That’s 0.004% that year. Internal combustion vehicles had 3,400 fires in 4.4 million cars, or 0.08 per cent.
This data shows EV fires being 20 times less likely to happen than ICE car fires.
Another group, EV FireSafe, funded by Australia’s Department of Defense, looked at EV and Plug-In Hybrid fires worldwide and found only 511 electric car battery fires. Ever. Out of 40m EVs worldwide from 2010 to June 2024. Compare that to the estimated over 210,000 vehicle fires in 2023 and it’s a pretty clear difference.
Unfun fact, car fires account for 15 percent of all reported fires.
Looking at the data, there was an increase in EV fires from 2021-2023 accounting for 30% of all EV fires due to faulty battery cells from two major brands. Once those were recalled, numbers went back down by more than half annually.
Another interesting thing I found in my research is that no official crash test has ever caused an EV fire.
Fire suppression
So clearly EV fires are far less common than internal combustion fires, but they’re clearly more dangerous.
In fact, several race tracks have banned EVs and hybrid cars from driving on the tracks due to the increased risk.
Mostly that’s due to the difficulty of putting out the fire. Most race tracks are small businesses and have limited budgets, so they’re working with fire suppression technology that hasn’t been updated in decades. Which makes sense, they’re sticking with what’s always worked.
And the same story applies for most towns and cities in the United States, their fire response is mostly a water based response.
With EVs becoming more prevalent, companies have been researching how to deal with electric fires and several have come up with solutions that can extinguish EV fires more quickly and safely.
We’re going to see more and more EVs on the roads, and this technology is going to get more affordable so we’re going to see this technology becoming more widespread, which will reduce the danger of these fires.
Wrapping Up
So here’s the conclusion: based on every piece of information I could dig up, EV fires are far less frequent than internal combustion fires.
Then again, EVs are new and news wants to report on ANYTHING controversial because as they say “if it bleeds, it leads”, so of COURSE they’re going to cover it more often and make it seem like a bigger issue.
And look, I get that lots of gearheads don’t like EVs, but in my opinion EVs are a significant part of the future, but they’re not necessarily built for us. They’re built for the people who look at their cars as appliances, just a machine to get them from point A to point B.
For gearheads like us, there are some performance models and those can be an absolute blast. There will be more options for us.
We all like cars that sound great and EVs, well they don’t. That being said keep your opinions about EVs if you don’t like em, but let’s be fair, they’re not more dangerous, if anything they’re much safer than the loud and fast cars we love.
So what do you think, let me know in the comments.