Data from the National Transportation Safety Board showed that EVs were involved in approximately 25 fires for every 100,000 sold. Comparatively, approximately 1,530 gasoline-powered vehicles and 3,475 hybrid vehicles were involved in fires for every 100,000 sold: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/environment-energy-coordinatio...
Statistics from 2015 showed that 174,000 vehicle fires were reported, and almost all of them involved gasoline vehicles. Tesla claims that gasoline cars are 11x more likely to catch fire than a Tesla, and that the best comparison of safety is fires per billion miles driven. If we compare using this method, there are approximately five EV fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars: https://driveelectriccolorado.org/myth-buster-evs-fire/
But I suspect your training and experience with car fires is substantial compared to EV fires. I suppose I didn't meant to say they are simple but rather well understood.
I wonder when there are literally hundreds of unique popular models of EV on the road, whether there will be issues arising from having innumerable unique designs for battery packs, first responder lines etc.
Not the same at all. First, a gas car doesn't simply catch fire while sitting in a dense parking lot. That's the most likely place for an EV to catch fire, as it's charging.
Second, when a gas car catches fire, it's almost always after a car incident. Firefighters arrive, and put the fire out easily.
Do you know what firefighters do when an EV catches fire? Nothing can stop this fire. Literally nothing. So firefighters have to evacuate everyone at least half a mile in radius. Then let it burn down. Which may take a full day. Or more. Read the protocols.
My guesstimation is that we're just trading modes of failure and it'll roughly be a wash in the end.
Gas cars have leaky oil and combustion happening (my old high school car caught on fire under the hood). Users are regularly handling gasoline at stations.
Electric cars may be a bigger problem parked or at home. Overall less maintenance that might cause a fire but batteries so far seem more susceptible than gas tanks which are dangerous but don't generally ignite. Users are installing charging stations (although should be covered by electrical codes). Fire suppression in the garage and at charging locations might become popular (encouraged by insurance discounts).
Yeah, batteries are "dangerous". We're all still carrying them around in our pockets and purses.
Why are you more concerned about EV fires when gas fires have been a thing for the past century? We had a parked car go up in flames at work and nobody was calling for the company to ban ice cars.
Data from the National Transportation Safety Board showed that EVs were involved in approximately 25 fires for every 100,000 sold. Comparatively, approximately 1,530 gasoline-powered vehicles and 3,475 hybrid vehicles were involved in fires for every 100,000 sold: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/environment-energy-coordinatio...
Statistics from 2015 showed that 174,000 vehicle fires were reported, and almost all of them involved gasoline vehicles. Tesla claims that gasoline cars are 11x more likely to catch fire than a Tesla, and that the best comparison of safety is fires per billion miles driven. If we compare using this method, there are approximately five EV fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars: https://driveelectriccolorado.org/myth-buster-evs-fire/
Non-flammable electrolyte: LiFePO4 batteries use a non-flammable electrolyte that does not catch fire even if the battery is punctured or damaged. The electrolyte is a mixture of lithium salts and a solvent that is less volatile and less flammable than the organic electrolytes used in other types of lithium-ion batteries.
High safety: LiFePO4 batteries have a lower risk of overheating and catching fire due to their more stable cathode material and lower operating temperature. They also have built-in protection circuits that prevent overcharge, over-discharge, short-circuit, and physical damage.
Also normal fuel cars catch fire, especially when refueling, fuel is highly inflammable.
I don’t understand why this hype on the (rare) EVs that catch fire when in charge.
Gasoline fires are different than a battery fire. Battery fires are class 2 or self oxidizing. They require substantially more resources to mitigate. A gasoline fire can be extinguished with traditional fire fighting methods. Battery fires basically need to be babysat for a day while they cook off.
> It’s like how there are thousands of gasoline fires a year but stop the presses if an EV goes up.
It's because EVs are new, and people want to know the risks. Granted, it would be nice for reporting to also mention that gasoline fires are as or more common, and or state the distinctions between fires from a gas vehicle v/s an EV.
Gasoline cars can catch fire too, but the EV problem is that the fires do not go out using traditional techniques and the fire can re-ignite over and over even several days after being put off.
I've heard people say recently that electric vehicles catch fire at the same rate as gas vehicles. Proof that they're basically safe enough.
Except that has vehicles catch fire after an accident, or after 200k miles when someone let's an oil leak go on for way too long.
Electric vehicles are catching fire while basically new, and while being used in standard ways like being parked and charging in your garage. It's not common at all for newish gas cars to catch fire while parked.
An EV fire is at least 10x worse than a gas vehicle fire. Hybrid fires due to batteries are also misclassified as petrol fires. If you catch a gas fire in time it can be put out with a bit of water or a fire extinguisher. It is also exceedingly rare. An EV fire is not extinguishable, burns several times hotter than any petrol fire, may reignite for weeks or months, and emits shocking volumes of toxic gasses that can injure anyone around. Although the fires can't be extinguished, firefighters still spray hundreds of thousands of liters of water onto battery fires, and that water is polluted and not captured. The whole thing is a nightmare.
The possibility of EVs catching fire all together inside an underground parking garage in a high rise should scare the hell out of anyone sane. Sprinkers will do nothing for that, and all that heat could permanently damage the building. The gasses could suffocate anyone unlucky enough to get stuck down below.
I am not sure what's your point? There's far less EVs now, and a negligible percentage of them are over 10 years and badly maintained. Also, the nature of fires is still very different.
With gasoline you can put it off using water, while for EVs water will actually make the fire worse and you'll need special compounds to turn it off.
I would think most gasoline cars catch on fire because there is severe damage to the front-end, the fuel lines are ruptured, and gasoline ends up on the hot engine and ignites. I would think a major advantage of an electric car is that it doesn't have that mode of failure. So replacing it with another mode of failure that also results in front-end fires is... not great.
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