The instant the words fire and car are used in the same phrase, it’s an EV or EVs make it worse.
As it happened with the Fremantle Highway, the ferry that caught fire in the Netherlands. Immediately everyone, including media, jumped to conclusions arguing that it was EVs starting and spreading the fire.
Except of course that was just a load of bollocks. The fire started nowhere near the EVs, in fact all EVs survived undamaged by the fire. Just the pure fact that there were EVs present on the ship immediately made them target #1 for weeks, and when reality knocked and EVs were undeniably ruled out, well.. one of the tumble weeds going past you in the vast desert of silence might’ve had a footnote attached to it.
Reality is, we know the data. There’s numbers. The swedish civil contingencies agency published data, showing that EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire than petrol and diesel cars. Out of 611.000 EVs, 23 caught fire – a rate of 0.004 percent. Out of 4.4 million petrol and diesel cars, 3400 caught fire – a rate of 0.08 percent.
In fact, as of June 30th, there have been 393 verified EV fires since 2010. Globally! No, i’m not missing a zero there. Less than 400 battery fires, worldwide, in 14 years.
Yet here we are, acting like they’re literal sticks of dynamite being driven around.
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.