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They go down it by various comparisons with recalls being only one of them and it's been updated for 2023 stats which are unsurprisingly similar to previous years. Another state they looked at is actual car fires as tracked by NTSB and then divided by BTS registered vehicles of their powertrain types so it's adjusted as a rate. It looks a lot worse when you're just talking about actual fires rather than by fire recalls.
It's understandable to be a bit cautious a few years ago, but part of that is to also recognize that the novelty of battery electric vehicles makes for more interesting headlines than internal combustion engine vehicle fires which have continued to happen for a solid century. There is now a non-negligible total sample size of older EVs on the road as well as just total amounts where the stats don't seem to be bearing out a particularly outsized risks compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, but rather the other way around thus far.
One of those shows 20 times, the other doesn't say. I'm looking for the 60 times.
The first one, is the link *I* provided. Again.. That's just not an accurate look. Especially when they lump hybrids in with gas vehicles and are looking at the chances of fire, not actual fires.
The Swedish report is, indeed, better.. However.. It doesn't break down the type of fire.. One would certainly HOPE that the old PO'ed girlfriend who tosses a molotov in the boyfriends car wouldn't be counted, regardless of whether the vehicle was gas or electric.
Do I think there's a higher number of fires in EVs vs Gas.. Even in the best metrics? Eh.. probably not. But, I would like to see some good numbers on it. Where I have concerns, at least the most concerns, so far as a fire risk, is.. As I mentioned before.. Chinese batteries.
Do I believe the numbers put forward by BYD? No.
And.. As the electric fleet ages and a battery replacement becomes necessary.. Where will we sit on that? The oldest electrics possibly on the road right now are only about 15 years old (Rough guess, 2008-ish).. The MAJORITY of gas vehicles are likely newer than that, partially thanks to Cash for Clunkers, but.. You've still got a large number of much older vehicles.
As the electric fleet ages.. Is GM or Ford or Toyota going to offer an OEM replacement battery pack for that vehicle 20 years down the road? What's the cost going to be? Will there be some of these cheap Chinese companies making replacement battery packs? You know as well as I do, if there's a $1000 price difference between an OEM and third party replacement battery.. Most people are going to go for the $1000 less option.
I can't imagine that EITHER EV or Gas vehicles have a large problem with 'spontaneous combustion', at least on a new vehicle.. Which.. Many EVs are, at least in comparison. It would seem that EV would be more likely, because, when they're just sitting, normally, they're in the process of being charged. Not always, obviously, but.. Most of the time, if you parked it in your garage, you'd probably hook the charger up, right? Then.. Do we count gas vehicles that catch on fire because the dummy driver is smoking while refilling the tank? Seems you'd have to..
There's zero chance of getting 'good' metrics. There's just no perfect way to do it that I can see. So, that Swedish one.. again, while not perfect.. Is probably reasonably close to accurate. But it's at 20 times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Airborneguy
Sorry, this one is settled “science”. Your gas car is more likely to combust.
You said 60 times. Just asking you to provide your source.
What you just wrote above proves that would be pointless.
"You said green. That's emerald."
I don't play that game. There's no benefit beyond ego to "prove" to you I am right. And ego I don't have. I simply don't care enough about other people to get into these "source" back and forth arguments.
Sorry, this one is settled “science”. Your gas car is more likely to combust.
Point is that the damage from the EV fire is very different than a regular ICE fire.
The thermal runaway in an EV’s high-voltage battery cannot be extinguished and it last a lot longer than gasoline fire.
When it comes to EV fires on ships, houses, etc. that pretty much guarantees a complete burn-down while an ICE fire has a chance to be extinguished.
Point is that the damage from the EV fire is very different than a regular ICE fire.
The thermal runaway in an EV’s high-voltage battery cannot be extinguished and it last a lot longer than gasoline fire.
When it comes to EV fires on ships, houses, etc. that pretty much guarantees a complete burn-down while an ICE fire has a chance to be extinguished.
One of those shows 20 times, the other doesn't say. I'm looking for the 60 times.
The first one, is the link *I* provided. Again.. That's just not an accurate look. Especially when they lump hybrids in with gas vehicles and are looking at the chances of fire, not actual fires.
The Swedish report is, indeed, better.. However.. It doesn't break down the type of fire.. One would certainly HOPE that the old PO'ed girlfriend who tosses a molotov in the boyfriends car wouldn't be counted, regardless of whether the vehicle was gas or electric.
Do I think there's a higher number of fires in EVs vs Gas.. Even in the best metrics? Eh.. probably not. But, I would like to see some good numbers on it. Where I have concerns, at least the most concerns, so far as a fire risk, is.. As I mentioned before.. Chinese batteries.
Do I believe the numbers put forward by BYD? No.
And.. As the electric fleet ages and a battery replacement becomes necessary.. Where will we sit on that? The oldest electrics possibly on the road right now are only about 15 years old (Rough guess, 2008-ish).. The MAJORITY of gas vehicles are likely newer than that, partially thanks to Cash for Clunkers, but.. You've still got a large number of much older vehicles.
As the electric fleet ages.. Is GM or Ford or Toyota going to offer an OEM replacement battery pack for that vehicle 20 years down the road? What's the cost going to be? Will there be some of these cheap Chinese companies making replacement battery packs? You know as well as I do, if there's a $1000 price difference between an OEM and third party replacement battery.. Most people are going to go for the $1000 less option.
I can't imagine that EITHER EV or Gas vehicles have a large problem with 'spontaneous combustion', at least on a new vehicle.. Which.. Many EVs are, at least in comparison. It would seem that EV would be more likely, because, when they're just sitting, normally, they're in the process of being charged. Not always, obviously, but.. Most of the time, if you parked it in your garage, you'd probably hook the charger up, right? Then.. Do we count gas vehicles that catch on fire because the dummy driver is smoking while refilling the tank? Seems you'd have to..
There's zero chance of getting 'good' metrics. There's just no perfect way to do it that I can see. So, that Swedish one.. again, while not perfect.. Is probably reasonably close to accurate. But it's at 20 times.
That first link *does* include actual fires and separates out hybrids. Again, that first link has multiple arguments it uses and one of them is about total number of fires out there for each respective powertrain type and then divided by the number of the respective vehicles to make a rate. Here's a quote from the first link
Quote:
To find the rate of car fires by vehicle type, we collected the latest data on car fires from the NTSB and calculated the rate of fires from sales data from the BTS. Take a look at what we found below.
Hybrid, gas, and electric car fire statistics
Hybrid vehicles actually come in number one with the most fires per 100K sales. Gas vehicles are second, and electric vehicles place third, with only 25 fires per 100K electric vehicle sales.
Those rates in their graphic for the 1,529.1 fires per 100K vehicle sales for gas vehicles ) versus 25.1 fires per 100k vehicle sales. 1,529.1 as a rate is 60.9 x 25.1. That's where the 60x comes in for *actual* fires versus actual sales. Completely contrary to what you're saying, hybrids are separated out and are netting an even higher risk by this metric than gas cars let alone BEVs.
There is a separate look at fire risk via fire risk related recalls and that *also* is in favor of EVs versus gas vehicles. While that's less conclusive than actual fires, it at least corroborates the gist of the above.
The Swedish report is at 20X rather than 60X higher chance of fires, but 20X is still a non-negligible difference. Are you really arguing that EV owners have anything close to a 20X higher chance of angry ex-GFs with molotovs and that makes up a vast majority of fires? That would seem pretty silly and if that were the case, then it would be unlikely this would not be noted.
Regardless, by any of these, fire risks are much, much higher for ICE vehicles than BEVs at the moment.
I have no idea why you're talking about BYD's numbers since they do not sell consumer vehicles in the US and have barely sold any in Sweden even more so at the time those stats covered. I agree that it's possible that perhaps with a much longer timeline and far greater sample size, there can be changes in the stats. However, at this moment, from what we know from multiple looks at this, the rate of fire incidents for internal combustion engine vehicles is much, much higher than that of battery electric vehicles which would be the opposite of what many others are touting. Should this start rapidly swinging the other way, remember that the difference right now is an order of magnitude difference rather than just a few multiples, so it's going to have to very dramatically swing the other way. Neither 60X nor 20X are negligible differences and this is despite these stats coming from two different countries with different habits and different information collecting and processing methodology--neither are negligible and both state that fire incident rates for ICE vehicles are a good order of magnitude higher than that for BEVs.
I do not see anything resembling a reasonable argument or data for electric vehicle fire incident rates being higher. You going off into talking about angry swedish ex-girlfriends and smoking while refilling when there's this large of a difference in incident rate is ridiculous unless you truly believe that the vast majority of each respective fire is comprised of such in which case at least try to show some evidence of it.
Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that there is zero fire risk for BEVs or that an EV wasn't responsible for starting the fire on this ship in question. No one is saying there is zero fire risk or that there shouldn't be a look at best practices for shipping EVs or for fire responses to such. However, what has thus far borne out is that fire incident rates for BEVs is an order of magnitude lower than that of ICE vehicles.
The cargo ship has been towed 66km and anchored in a spot that is further from the shipping lanes and more protected from wind. Another boat carrying equipment to capture/clean up oil spills has been stationed nearby as a precautionary measure. I believe they're still trying to actually put the fire out; after that's been accomplished they will tow it into port. https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/31/...gical-disaster
excuse me...the shore bound fire incidence is meaningless on a ship. If we consider fuels only, on a ship, gas cars are essentially shipped empty as per maritime law that goes back many many decades. electric cars are NOT. ergo, if ANY of these cars burst into flames, lets be adults, it was electrical in nature and indeed, well over 90% of ICE car fires on land are .... electrical in nature.
But no one HERE, was there, so we must listen to the guy on the ship who called in the mayday (not a pan pan, not a securite, but a mayday) and stated on the call/distress channel that it started in a battery. The content of this call was released to the public...overseas. their ship, their radio, their news
While no dutch authorities have put a seal on this and likely wont for some time, no one has even tried to assert anything contrary to the ship board person, ergo it stands as the likely per-supposed cause. Its how the process works.
I can't imagine that EITHER EV or Gas vehicles have a large problem with 'spontaneous combustion', at least on a new vehicle.. Which.. Many EVs are, at least in comparison. It would seem that EV would be more likely, because, when they're just sitting, normally, they're in the process of being charged. Not always, obviously, but.. Most of the time, if you parked it in your garage, you'd probably hook the charger up, right? Then.. Do we count gas vehicles that catch on fire because the dummy driver is smoking while refilling the tank? Seems you'd have to..
I watched exactly that happen in a Home Depot parking lot. I was parked and eating my lunch before going into the store. Maybe 100 feet away was a hybrid minivan parked amongst other parked cars, not charging, no one in it.
All of a sudden, poof, a huge cloud of brown smoke rose up from beneath the minivan. More brown smoke started pouring out from under the van. Soon flames started to appear and then there were several explosions. A few minutes later the van was completely engulfed and there was a mix of brown and black smoke. That's about when the fire truck showed up.
They initially used a hose from the truck to try and cool the outside of the van and the surrounding vehicles which were getting pretty scorched at this point. Then they came over with hoses hooked up to hydrants and just about buried the van in water. A few minutes of that and they had things under control.
Hyundai, Kia recall 91,000 US vehicles over fire risks, urge owners to park outside
People may find this interesting: "Hyundai Motor and Kia said on Thursday they are recalling more than 91,000 newer vehicles in the U.S. because of fire risks and urged owners to park outside and away from structures pending repairs.
The recall covers Hyundai 2023-2024 Palisade, 2023 Tucson, Sonata, Elantra, and Kona vehicles and 2023-2024 Seltos and 2023 Kia Soul, Sportage vehicles. About 52,000 Hyundai vehicles and nearly 40,000 Kia vehicles are covered under the recall.
The Korean automakers said electronic controllers for the Idle Stop & Go oil pump assembly may contain damaged electrical components that can cause the pump to overheat."
Sorry, this one is settled “science”. Your gas car is more likely to combust.
Consider those EV's fires that also burned down the house.
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Hyundai, Kia recall 91,000 US vehicles over fire risks, urge owners to park outside
