The truth about EV fires - don't buy a hybrid...
Discussion
The truth: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/tusker-fleet-data...
And crucially some really interesting stats:
With data corroborated from a US insurer, the study found that EVs suffer 25 fires per 100,000 sold. Petrol or diesel vehicles were found to experience 1,530 fires per 100,000, with hybrid vehicles at a notably higher risk of 3,475 fires per 100,000
I'm aware of course that an EV fire can be particularly nasty and difficult to put out (and stay out). But the numbers suggest that for every one EV fire there are over sixty ICE fires, so no matter how bad an EV fire might be, the sheer number of ICE fires has to create more danger/damage.
But the really surprising one for me is that hybrid cars are 3 time more likely than even standard ICE to catch fire.. I hadn't seen that stat before despite the endless 'EV fire' debates on these forums.
EDIT: For transparency the 60:1 ratio of fire risks from the US insurer is higher than the Tusker number (also in the article linked) of 20:1 chance. Vut whichever stats are used, plainly the risk of far, far lower with a BEV car.
And crucially some really interesting stats:
With data corroborated from a US insurer, the study found that EVs suffer 25 fires per 100,000 sold. Petrol or diesel vehicles were found to experience 1,530 fires per 100,000, with hybrid vehicles at a notably higher risk of 3,475 fires per 100,000
I'm aware of course that an EV fire can be particularly nasty and difficult to put out (and stay out). But the numbers suggest that for every one EV fire there are over sixty ICE fires, so no matter how bad an EV fire might be, the sheer number of ICE fires has to create more danger/damage.
But the really surprising one for me is that hybrid cars are 3 time more likely than even standard ICE to catch fire.. I hadn't seen that stat before despite the endless 'EV fire' debates on these forums.
EDIT: For transparency the 60:1 ratio of fire risks from the US insurer is higher than the Tusker number (also in the article linked) of 20:1 chance. Vut whichever stats are used, plainly the risk of far, far lower with a BEV car.
Edited by TheDeuce on Tuesday 7th May 17:11
How many people do you know who've had a car fire?
Personally I know one person whose neighbour's LandRover caught fire, in 40-odd years of motoring.
And when I was about 5, somebody in the next village set fire to an old reliant shell, producing copious smoke.
The stats are hugely skewed by stolen cars getting torched.
All the stats are very dodgy.
If you look at the metric of fatalities in car fires in the UK, 100 per year is widely sprayed around the internet.
But the LGA says 22 for the whole of England.
The celtic fringe must be carnage?
80 people have died in Tesla fires allegedly?
Six million Teslas, mostly not on the road for very many years.
Put that on a long list of things you might die from any year with a 1 in a million chance?
Do those high figures for hybrids include i3REx's, I'm aware a few of those have immolated.
Personally I know one person whose neighbour's LandRover caught fire, in 40-odd years of motoring.
And when I was about 5, somebody in the next village set fire to an old reliant shell, producing copious smoke.
The stats are hugely skewed by stolen cars getting torched.
All the stats are very dodgy.
If you look at the metric of fatalities in car fires in the UK, 100 per year is widely sprayed around the internet.
But the LGA says 22 for the whole of England.
The celtic fringe must be carnage?
80 people have died in Tesla fires allegedly?
Six million Teslas, mostly not on the road for very many years.
Put that on a long list of things you might die from any year with a 1 in a million chance?
Do those high figures for hybrids include i3REx's, I'm aware a few of those have immolated.
OutInTheShed said:
How many people do you know who've had a car fire?
Personally I know one person whose neighbour's LandRover caught fire, in 40-odd years of motoring.
And when I was about 5, somebody in the next village set fire to an old reliant shell, producing copious smoke.
The stats are hugely skewed by stolen cars getting torched.
All the stats are very dodgy.
If you look at the metric of fatalities in car fires in the UK, 100 per year is widely sprayed around the internet.
But the LGA says 22 for the whole of England.
The celtic fringe must be carnage?
80 people have died in Tesla fires allegedly?
Six million Teslas, mostly not on the road for very many years.
Put that on a long list of things you might die from any year with a 1 in a million chance?
Do those high figures for hybrids include i3REx's, I'm aware a few of those have immolated.
I know one person who had a car fire, me.. it hadn't been driven for a while, a few miles later it ground to a halt and then smoke started billowing out. 10 mins later it was a smouldering shell.Personally I know one person whose neighbour's LandRover caught fire, in 40-odd years of motoring.
And when I was about 5, somebody in the next village set fire to an old reliant shell, producing copious smoke.
The stats are hugely skewed by stolen cars getting torched.
All the stats are very dodgy.
If you look at the metric of fatalities in car fires in the UK, 100 per year is widely sprayed around the internet.
But the LGA says 22 for the whole of England.
The celtic fringe must be carnage?
80 people have died in Tesla fires allegedly?
Six million Teslas, mostly not on the road for very many years.
Put that on a long list of things you might die from any year with a 1 in a million chance?
Do those high figures for hybrids include i3REx's, I'm aware a few of those have immolated.
I wouldn't expect fatalities very often, most people decide to get out of the car fairly early on during it burning.
So are you suggesting that the ICE stats are skewed because there's so many older ICE cars, easy to steal and torch? I'd agree that has to skew the numbers, although I think it can only account for a relatively small part of the difference in car fire frequency between ICE and EV. And it certainly doesn't explain why the hybrid stats are so much higher, as they're mostly new and as unlikely to be stolen as an EV.
Edited by TheDeuce on Tuesday 7th May 18:50
I'm mostly suggesting I don't trust any of the stats.
Does that airport car park count as one fire?
You need trustworthy stats compiled in a coherent standardised manner across all classes of vehicle.
It's like the alleged statistic that the most dangerous conveyance is the Pogo stick, because it created a lot of A&E visits for not much forward progress.
Space Shuttles and Apollo missions are very safe on the same measure, because when they don't explode, they do a lot of miles.
If you google 'Prius Fire' you'll get some hits, but there are literally millions out there and they do a lot of miles.
Does that airport car park count as one fire?
You need trustworthy stats compiled in a coherent standardised manner across all classes of vehicle.
It's like the alleged statistic that the most dangerous conveyance is the Pogo stick, because it created a lot of A&E visits for not much forward progress.
Space Shuttles and Apollo missions are very safe on the same measure, because when they don't explode, they do a lot of miles.
If you google 'Prius Fire' you'll get some hits, but there are literally millions out there and they do a lot of miles.
OutInTheShed said:
I'm mostly suggesting I don't trust any of the stats.
Does that airport car park count as one fire?
You need trustworthy stats compiled in a coherent standardised manner across all classes of vehicle.
It's like the alleged statistic that the most dangerous conveyance is the Pogo stick, because it created a lot of A&E visits for not much forward progress.
Space Shuttles and Apollo missions are very safe on the same measure, because when they don't explode, they do a lot of miles.
If you google 'Prius Fire' you'll get some hits, but there are literally millions out there and they do a lot of miles.
Isn't the tusker report reasonable and balanced though? That's all for same age bracket cars etc. no reason they should twist the numbers either.Does that airport car park count as one fire?
You need trustworthy stats compiled in a coherent standardised manner across all classes of vehicle.
It's like the alleged statistic that the most dangerous conveyance is the Pogo stick, because it created a lot of A&E visits for not much forward progress.
Space Shuttles and Apollo missions are very safe on the same measure, because when they don't explode, they do a lot of miles.
If you google 'Prius Fire' you'll get some hits, but there are literally millions out there and they do a lot of miles.
TheDeuce said:
Isn't the tusker report reasonable and balanced though? That's all for same age bracket cars etc. no reason they should twist the numbers either.
Not really, it's a witless mish-mash of random data from various countries.Just filler for a trade rag.
That article is like someone trying to pick some data to prove their point, but they forgot what the point was.
OutInTheShed said:
TheDeuce said:
Isn't the tusker report reasonable and balanced though? That's all for same age bracket cars etc. no reason they should twist the numbers either.
Not really, it's a witless mish-mash of random data from various countries.Just filler for a trade rag.
That article is like someone trying to pick some data to prove their point, but they forgot what the point was.
The other numbers are given separately in that article and serve to corroborate the fact that EV fires are far rarer than ICE.
Your stance seems to be that you'll entirely ignore any and all reports so long as you can find a way to pick holes in them or identify a factor they haven't allowed for - such as car theft and arson etc. I think that's nonsensical. All evidence to date very clearly demonstrates that EV fires are incredibly rare. It doesn't matter if none of the datasets are 'perfect' or that not every factor is accounted for.. All that matters is that a trend in the data is very obvious and should be easy to acknowledge.
GT9 said:
poo at Paul's said:
So, 1.5% of ice cars end up having fires…?
b
ks they do!
Yep, much better to go with your gut on this one, we don't need experts, you're bound to know more than anyone and everyone who's taken the time to study the data.b
ks they do! You think for each 200, 3 set themselves alight?
There’s 30 million ice vehicles in the UK, so that’s 450,000 that will burn themsleves before they end their natural life…..
You believe what you like, but that’s utter pony! I’d be amazed if there is more than 20k vehicle fires in the Uk each year and that includes arson!
TheDeuce said:
It's just been explained to you in a very easy to understand way.
You just don't like it
I don’t doubt that the EV’s are the least likely to catch fire vs hybrids being the most likely, and the relative ratios. It’s simple logic as they’re the most complex with all the risks of both ICE and EV combined. Kind of obvious really.You just don't like it
What I am skeptical of though (along with everyone else it seems) are the supposed fire incidence rates for all vehicle types. A little bit of critical thinking suggests that the rates don’t seem plausible. Even accounting for a 10 year time period, approx. one ICE per 100,000 is catching fire per day for that attrition rate to hold true. For EV’s it’d be one every 5 months per 100,000 going up in flames. You’d be seeing vehicles fires on a weekly basis, maybe even daily basis if you’re in and around a large city, which is obviously not the case.
Expand that to the UK with now a million EVs on the road, there’d be one going up every 2 weeks somewhere in the country, which again, obviously isn’t the case. We’d definitely be hearing about that from the EV hate brigade, but we don’t because it’s not true.
Perhaps instead you’re the one who doesn’t like what you’re being told given how uppity you seem to getting over it. Not everything you read on the internet is true.
With manufacturers calling anything a hybrid that has a few extra components it won’t all be real hybrids.
If we only include hybrids with a 1kw battery pack or more, that reduces the numbers.
I haven’t heard of Toyota hybrid 1.5kw battery pack fires, even if they did catch fire it’s such a small pack that it’s unlikely to do much damage. They’ve been making them for 25 years now.
If we only include hybrids with a 1kw battery pack or more, that reduces the numbers.
I haven’t heard of Toyota hybrid 1.5kw battery pack fires, even if they did catch fire it’s such a small pack that it’s unlikely to do much damage. They’ve been making them for 25 years now.
Whataguy said:
With manufacturers calling anything a hybrid that has a few extra components it won’t all be real hybrids.
If we only include hybrids with a 1kw battery pack or more, that reduces the numbers.
I haven’t heard of Toyota hybrid 1.5kw battery pack fires, even if they did catch fire it’s such a small pack that it’s unlikely to do much damage. They’ve been making them for 25 years now.
I do agree that some hybrids probably don't deserve the term...If we only include hybrids with a 1kw battery pack or more, that reduces the numbers.
I haven’t heard of Toyota hybrid 1.5kw battery pack fires, even if they did catch fire it’s such a small pack that it’s unlikely to do much damage. They’ve been making them for 25 years now.
However, the ratio of fires in cars sold as hybrid is clearly far higher than plain ICE. Whether or not they deserve to be called a hybrid doesn't effect the numbers - it suggests there is something about the combination of electrification (even if very little) with ICE that increases the fire risk quite significantly.
poo at Paul's said:
So ok, in your town or village, how many ice cars are there? 20,000, 100,000, 200?
You think for each 200, 3 set themselves alight?
There’s 30 million ice vehicles in the UK, so that’s 450,000 that will burn themsleves before they end their natural life…..
You believe what you like, but that’s utter pony! I’d be amazed if there is more than 20k vehicle fires in the Uk each year and that includes arson!
"19,256 road car fires were reported in the UK in 2023"You think for each 200, 3 set themselves alight?
There’s 30 million ice vehicles in the UK, so that’s 450,000 that will burn themsleves before they end their natural life…..
You believe what you like, but that’s utter pony! I’d be amazed if there is more than 20k vehicle fires in the Uk each year and that includes arson!
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/the-latest-car-fire-s...
It amazes me that the one thing we all know here, we know how to put out an ICE car if it catches fire, without googling what do you do with an EV? Currently huge confusion about how to repair an EV or even if they are safe to repair. Take away here is we now know all cars catches fire, no one is considering real safety measures.
raspy said:
poo at Paul's said:
So ok, in your town or village, how many ice cars are there? 20,000, 100,000, 200?
You think for each 200, 3 set themselves alight?
There’s 30 million ice vehicles in the UK, so that’s 450,000 that will burn themsleves before they end their natural life…..
You believe what you like, but that’s utter pony! I’d be amazed if there is more than 20k vehicle fires in the Uk each year and that includes arson!
"19,256 road car fires were reported in the UK in 2023"You think for each 200, 3 set themselves alight?
There’s 30 million ice vehicles in the UK, so that’s 450,000 that will burn themsleves before they end their natural life…..
You believe what you like, but that’s utter pony! I’d be amazed if there is more than 20k vehicle fires in the Uk each year and that includes arson!
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/the-latest-car-fire-s...
"Approximately 100,000 cars catch fire in the UK every year, causing roughly a hundred fatalities. One out of twelve car fires is started deliberately, which makes arson the most common cause of car fires in the UK."
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