Government data show gasoline vehicles are up to 100x more fire-prone than EVs | Hacker News Reader

Government data show gasoline vehicles are up to 100x more fire-prone than EVs

electrek.co

33 pointsjosephcsible15 comments

This is kind of misleading. Are gasoline vehicles more fire-prone? Sure, I believe that's true if you account for all types of vehicle fires.

If your car is parked in your garage, what is more fire-prone? Your turned off gasoline vehicle, or your plugged in EV? That's where some of this concern is coming from. Is it a freak occurrence? Probably!

They need to address that issue head on, explain how rare it is or why it happens etc, rather than just claiming EVs are less fire prone then gasoline vehicles.

If you tell me tornados cause more destruction and death each year than earthquakes, does that mean we should just accept that we're lucky to have had an earthquake instead of a tornado?

> If your car is parked in your garage, what is more fire-prone? Your turned off gasoline vehicle, or your plugged in EV?

Do you have the answer to this question?

I don't. Nor did the study answer that question. But that's my point -- consumers need to be reassured that their EV vehicles are safe plugged in within their home while they are sleeping.

Outside of the bolt recall, I’m unaware of there being any precedent that would be cause for such a concern.

It did happen here in the Bay Area. I’m a huge EV fan but this does concern me. My Tesla charges right under the bedroom of my two year old.

https://www.businessinsider.com/couples-tesla-caught-fire-ch...

Do you have any affiliation or relationship with elektrek (the linked website), out of interest?

Nope. Never even heard of them or their website until this article. I'm not in any industry related to EV or gasoline vehicles.

FWIW when renewing our home insurance they asked whether we had any EVs that charge or are parked in our garage. I’m not sure how it would have affected our premium as I don’t own an EV, but the fact that they’re even asking makes me think they must see it as an elevated risk.

I think the big concern for many is the advice from EV makers (e.g. GM) to not park their vehicles in a garage or near other vehicles, nor to leave them charging unattended [1]. It might be interesting to compare gas vs. electric vehicle fires while the cars are parked rather than in motion.

Stories like a Tesla catching fire in a garage while it's owners were asleep is the risk that most fear [2]. Is there a greater risk of gas vehicles catching fire while parked in a garage?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/gm-tel...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-f...

> the advice from EV makers (e.g. GM) to not park their vehicles in a garage or near other vehicles, nor to leave them charging unattended

That's only because of the active recall of the Bolt. No automaker says that about EVs in general.

One of the main issues with EV fires isn't necessarily prevalence, but rather the hot, explosive fire caused by battery packs, which cannot be easily extinguished by firefighters. Extremely large amounts of water are required, and even with this, fires may burn for an extended period of time.

Furthermore, lithium ion batteries can reignite after many hours, when the car may be stored close to other cars or indoors.

Besides re-ingnition, cannot say if it is already established as an official protocol, but I am told that the current practice here (Italy) is to have rescued EV's involved in a non trivial (but not necessarily "severe") crash stay 48 hours in a parking, at least 5 m free on each side of the car, before making any attempt to inspect/repair the vehicle, because of the risk of "delayed" ignition.

My friends car caught fire when it was parked. And my car caught fire while driving. Both gas.

Battery systems in EVs are not much different from what we have in our cell phones and laptops. We are not afraid of our phones bursting in flames while charging, yet the mainstream media wants us to be afraid of EVs.

What good is an 'up-to' metric? Not even going to read the post. Yes, nuclear power generation could be catastrophic, but what's the expected value and possible mitigations for reducing dangerous outcomes.

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