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DO ELECTRIC CARS POSE A GREATER FIRE RISK THAN PETROL OR DIESEL VEHICLES?

When a fire started in a car park at Luton airport last month, it caused a round of speculations that

an electric vehicle (EV) was to blame. The theory was quickly rejected by the Bedfordshire fire service,

which said the blaze appeared to have started in a diesel car. Yet the rumour did not stop, spreading on

social media like, well, wildfire.

5 The claims about electric car fires fall into two broad categories. The first is that fires are more

common in electric cars, while the second is that when fires break out, they are more damaging.

If electric cars do pose more of a fire risk than petrol or diesel, that would have a lot of

consequences. One could be a requirement for larger car park spaces to stop fires spreading, while the

Conservative MP Greg Smith, who serves on the Transport Committee, said in July that EV owners

10 should pay higher insurance premiums to cover the extra costs to firefighters.

There are millions of electric cars on roads around the world, so some data on the prevalence of

fires is slowly emerging. That evidence suggests there is no reason to think that EVs are more likely to go

up in flames, several experts have said. Indeed, the opposite appears to be true. “All the data shows that

EVs are just much, much less likely to set on fire than their petrol equivalent”, said Colin Walker, the

15 head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank. “The many, many fires that you

have for petrol or diesel cars just aren’t reported.” Elon Musk’s TESLA is the world’s biggest maker of

electric cars. It says the number of fires on US roads involving TESLAs from 2012 to 2021 was 11 times

lower per mile than the figure for all cars, the vast majority of which have petrol or diesel engines.

Despite the increased danger once a battery fire is burning, the probability of being caught in an

20 EV fire appears overall to be much lower than for petrol or diesel cars, based on currently available data.

However, this could change as more and more people get electric cars. (Fragment adapted from The Guardian.)

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