ICE fires 20x more likely than EV fires

[Laconian]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/lithium-ion-battery-fires

IEEE breaks through the sensationalism. 20x the risk is massive!

[AutobahnSHO]

I swear I saw a car fire every week in the summer when I was living in Maryland...

[MrH]

Oh noooooo.  Why do people keep citing this?  It's embarrassing even a place like IEEE is citing this garbage.  This is very, very basic journalism to get correct.  You can google search this and see it's wrong in 30 seconds.

Car and Driver debunked this a year and a half ago.  And the "updated" 2023 infographic is identical to the same one they pitched years ago.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40163966/cars-catching-fire-new-york-times-real-statistics/

[giant_mtb]

Only time I've ever seen a car on fire IRL is at a kegger in the woods.

[CaminoRacer]

Only time I've ever seen a car on fire IRL is at a kegger in the woods.

I've seen a few on the side of the road.

Also in my driveway.

[Laconian]

Oh noooooo.  Why do people keep citing this?  It's embarrassing even a place like IEEE is citing this garbage.  This is very, very basic journalism to get correct.  You can google search this and see it's wrong in 30 seconds.

Car and Driver debunked this a year and a half ago.  And the "updated" 2023 infographic is identical to the same one they pitched years ago.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40163966/cars-catching-fire-new-york-times-real-statistics/

The numbers are compiled by a Swedish government agency, released in a report on May 8.
https://www-msb-se.translate.goog/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/2023/maj/brander-i-eltransportmedel-under-2022/?ref=warpnews.org&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

C&D can't exactly debunk reports released in the future.

[MrH]

The numbers are compiled by a Swedish government agency, released in a report on May 8.
https://www-msb-se.translate.goog/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/2023/maj/brander-i-eltransportmedel-under-2022/?ref=warpnews.org&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

C&D can't exactly debunk reports released in the future.

The very first source that sets the narrative for the entire story is that garbage auto insurance EZ website.  Everything else is to support that premise.

The MSB data could be interesting, but I don't think it's very compelling from what they've released so far.  I would like to see age of the vehicle in relation to fires as well.  Cars become more and more likely to catch fire as they age and fall into disrepair.  It's not really relevant to compare the sample of all ICE cars to all EVs, as EVs will be substantially newer.  Filtering down to just cars produced in the last 3 years would be better, something like that.

I wouldn't be surprised if overall, ICEs and EVs are pretty comparable in terms of fire rate or EVs were even less likely.  I think Teslas are way more likely though, and EVs are also much harder to put out the fire when it happens.

According to IIHS non-crash fire report from Dec 2018 that looked at all 2016-2018, Tesla had by far the greatest claim frequency. They haven't done a comprehensive report like that since unfortunatley.



 

[Laconian]

Those are fair points.

I don't feel like going through a checkout process and giving up my personal details to look at a PDF, so I can't speak to the specific details of the Swedish report. Maybe Sweden has a more diverse EV product mix versus the US, which was and continues to be very Tesla-biased.