How much you can give on that Daily Fail article is shown in the last paragraph.
“With Labour’s ban due to take effect in five years’ time, the new figures will be a worry for ministers as they grapple with a declining interest in hybrid vehicles.”
The Daily Wail seems to have missed the fact that the ZEV Mandate (or “petrol ban”) was a conservative policy. Labour didn’t introduce it, Tories did. Irregardless of what you think of the ban itself, the fact that they just blatantly lie should immediately make you question anything you read in the article. And yes, this isn’t a mistake, it’s a deliberate lie. Boris Johnson was very open about it, i actually still remember his speech about his 10 point plan and the “green industrial revolution” – and it’s not my job to remember this, and i follow politics only tangentially on top.
That said, lets look at the actual claim.
“Death rates in hybrids are higher than in petrol cars”. Okay. So lets start with the obvious issue that this statistic doesn’t actually point out a reason for the fatalities. It’s the typical “9 out of 10 murderers consumed milk for breakfast, ban milk” statement. For all you know, this is coincidence, or may be related to PHEVs generally being considerably more powerful than their non-electrified counterparts.
Without knowing the cause of the fatalities (as in, battery fires etc), you actually can’t infer anything from that statistic in regards to their safety.
Hybrids also aren’t more prone to fire. Think about it for a second, in a vacuum. You have battery vehicles (be it PH or BEV) on one side, and then on the other, you have a thin metal/plastic container full of liquid that is literally designed to catch fire/explode.
If the battery itself was an issue, BEVs would be prone to fire. They’re not – they’re far less likely to burn compared to an ICE vehicle. Leaves the claim that batteries in PHEVs somehow magically degrade because, in the DMs mind, it’s mounted on top of the exhaust manifold. Which of course it isn’t. It usually is mounted in the floor or boot. They don’t get hot. This is, yet again, shown by the fact that batteries in BEVs have to be actively cooled (or reduced in power output), whereas in Hybrids, that is not the case – because they don’t get hot enough. This entire claim is nonsense.
Now, the reason we’re arguing “fire” here after arguing “deaths involving hybrids” is a claim made by US outlets, lets look at that then.
For starters, this isn’t a statistic. It’s a third party aggregate estimate – there are actually no official numbers corroborating this.Those US numbers are based on “dozens” of reviews, as well as some cobbled together numbers from non-official sources.
For us here, the numbers published by swedens MSB (Civil Contingencies Agency) are considerably more applicable (similar regulations), as well as more reliable. They’re somewhat less precise since they bunch up PHEVs with BEVs, but it’s still an absolutely obvious picture. In Sweden, 0.004% of all electric vehicles (as mentioned: PHEVs and EVs) caught fire. For ICE, that number is 0.08%.
And that sounds about right. I can’t tell you why the australian interpretation of cobbled together US data is so far off, but every statistic apart from this one points the entirely opposite direction, leading to a “vaccines cause autism” situation yet again, where one outlet (or “doctor”) releases an outlandish and moronic claim, and the media just runs away with it for decades to come.
That all said: if “errmahgurrd fire” is the problem, the solution is very simple. Ban petrol and diesels – will save plenty of multi-story car parks as well, considering they exclusively get set on fire by ICE vehicles so far.
Worth pointing out that the Mail did not reference the swedish numbers, despite them clearly popping up in a google search when you look for statistics on hybrid fires. You’ll also find statements by Thatcham Research, pointing out that ICE vehicles are much more likely to be subject to a fire related insurance claims than EV and PHEV.
0.001% for EVs, 0.003% for PHEV and REX (something like a QQai E-Power), 0.07% for Petrol and 0.011% for Diesel.
Lining up quite nicely with the swedish numbers.
Long story short.. Sensationalist nonsense, deliberately designed to mislead readers. In terms of fire safety, hybrids are no more dangerous than a container filled with explosive liquid driving 50mph, and IF they are more likely to kill someone (which i don’t think based on the statistic), it’s likely due to being on average 25-50% more powerful than the equivalent petrol engine (a Golf has 150hp, the smallest Golf PHEV has 204, goes up to almost 270 in the GTE). The battery clearly isn’t “the killer”, nor is the additional weight (BEVs have more of both battery and weight).
PHEVs are not less safe than ICE vehicles. You can get into more trouble due to being more powerful, but that’s a fault in the driver, not the propulsion system.
I didn’t even want to post this, but for people like Oscarmax’ wife, i think it’s important to point out, including a few hard and official numbers.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.