4 ms·

When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? Why is it that EV fires are so common? > Other than being afraid of new technology. .

When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? Why is it that EV fires are so common? > Other than being afraid of new technology. ... but then you resorted to ad hominem. Why would someone have to be "afraid" of new technology in order to have serious and legitimate concerns about it? To help you out a bit, we also saw very bad lithium battery issues in laptops about ten years ago (just search youtube), to the point where airlines were seriously considering banning laptops and phones from being brought on board (and did ban one version of the Galaxy Note, IIRC). That was resolved, so it stands to reason that as EV improves, the risk of catastrophic fires will improve as well. (Of course, those batteries were not being violently and physically damaged, so it's unknown whether software will be able to assist with accident-situations with an EV.)

maeln 4y ago
> When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? Why is it that EV fires are so common? Recently actually. An accident happened close to my place and one of the car caught fire. The driver died. > Why is it that EV fires are so common? How are they more common ? Do you have any statistics about it ?
wongarsu 4y ago
According to the first statistic I found [1] there are about 180000 highway vehicle fires each year in the US, and in 26% of them the item that first ignited was "flammable or combustible liquid, gas filter or piping". So that's about 45000 gasoline fires a year in the US (if you don't count ones where the fire started somewhere else in the car). You just don't hear about them because they aren't newsworthy (precisely because there are so many). Sadly the source states that they don't have good numbers on EVs to compare. 1: https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-st...
- jotux 4y ago
  Some quick googling says tesla is ~70% [1] of the EV market and there is someone who claims to track every telsa fire [2] which has counts 97 fires since 2013. Compare that to 45k ICE vehicles fires every year and it appears that EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire. I think if you live in one of the top 50 metro areas of the US and listen to local traffic news between June-August you'll probably hear about a traffic problem related to a car fire every few days or weeks. ICE vehicles fires are just so common we accept it and it's not reported unless especially gruesome. 1: https://electrek.co/2022/04/26/tesla-tsla-owns-75-percent-us-electric-car-market-so-far-this-year/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/26/tesla-tsla-owns-75-percent-us... 2: https://www.tesla-fire.com/ https://www.tesla-fire.com/
  - Cpoll 4y ago
    > Compare that to 45k ICE vehicles fires every year and it appears that EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire. You haven't provided enough information to make a comparison. Googling some numbers, Tesla has sold 2MM cars, so taking that 97 number we get 0.00004 fires per Tesla. US has 275MM cars, and (2022 - 2012) * 45000 = 450000, so we have 0.00163 fires per ICE car. Conclusion: If those numbers are correct, Teslas are two orders of magnitude less likely to catch fire.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      I bet if you control for vehicle age and economic status, EVs combust at the same rate as gasoline vehicles
      - GiorgioG 4y ago
        "In 2017, 70% of the cars to catch fire were more than 10 years old." https://housegrail.com/car-fire-statistics/#1_There_were_212500_vehicle_fires_in_2018 https://housegrail.com/car-fire-statistics/#1_There_were_212...
    - gunapologist99 4y ago
      Even if that's true (and your numbers do look to be similar to what I've seen), it's not relevant, because when a Tesla catches fire, it utterly immolates itself and everything around it. That is certainly not true for a gasoline fire once the fire engines roll up, to say nothing of a diesel fire, which are comparatively hard to start and easy to extinguish. It'd be far more informative to compare injuries and damages.
ggm 4y ago
> When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? Why is it that EV fires are so common? What is their commonality, against ICE car fires? Are you subject to a recency/frequency bias in the news, or do you have some citable facts behind this? I see a LOT of news about EV fires, but few about the car fires I know happen because I drive past them. I suggest there is a reporting bias because of the topicality.
aaronmdjones 4y ago
> When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? A fire in an ICE car 2 months ago shut down our local motorway for over 50 minutes during rush hour. A month prior to that, someone ran their ICE car off the road into a field; it caught fire and the driver died. ICE vehicle fires are common. The difference is that EV vehicle fires are more widely reported upon. You see more stories about EV vehicle fires than ICE vehicle fires, so you think they happen more often.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >The difference is that EV vehicle fires are more widely reported upon A clapped out POS or a crashed vehicle catching fire isn't newsworthy. A vehicle bursting into flames without a good reason is.

maeln 4y ago

> When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? Why is it that EV fires are so common? Recently actually. An accident happened close to my place and one of the car caught fire. The driver died. > Why is it that EV fires are so common? How are they more common ? Do you have any statistics about it ?

wongarsu 4y ago

According to the first statistic I found [1] there are about 180000 highway vehicle fires each year in the US, and in 26% of them the item that first ignited was "flammable or combustible liquid, gas filter or piping". So that's about 45000 gasoline fires a year in the US (if you don't count ones where the fire started somewhere else in the car). You just don't hear about them because they aren't newsworthy (precisely because there are so many). Sadly the source states that they don't have good numbers on EVs to compare. 1: https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-st...

jotux 4y ago
Some quick googling says tesla is ~70% [1] of the EV market and there is someone who claims to track every telsa fire [2] which has counts 97 fires since 2013. Compare that to 45k ICE vehicles fires every year and it appears that EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire. I think if you live in one of the top 50 metro areas of the US and listen to local traffic news between June-August you'll probably hear about a traffic problem related to a car fire every few days or weeks. ICE vehicles fires are just so common we accept it and it's not reported unless especially gruesome. 1: https://electrek.co/2022/04/26/tesla-tsla-owns-75-percent-us-electric-car-market-so-far-this-year/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/26/tesla-tsla-owns-75-percent-us... 2: https://www.tesla-fire.com/ https://www.tesla-fire.com/
- Cpoll 4y ago
  > Compare that to 45k ICE vehicles fires every year and it appears that EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire. You haven't provided enough information to make a comparison. Googling some numbers, Tesla has sold 2MM cars, so taking that 97 number we get 0.00004 fires per Tesla. US has 275MM cars, and (2022 - 2012) * 45000 = 450000, so we have 0.00163 fires per ICE car. Conclusion: If those numbers are correct, Teslas are two orders of magnitude less likely to catch fire.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    I bet if you control for vehicle age and economic status, EVs combust at the same rate as gasoline vehicles
    - GiorgioG 4y ago
      "In 2017, 70% of the cars to catch fire were more than 10 years old." https://housegrail.com/car-fire-statistics/#1_There_were_212500_vehicle_fires_in_2018 https://housegrail.com/car-fire-statistics/#1_There_were_212...
  - gunapologist99 4y ago
    Even if that's true (and your numbers do look to be similar to what I've seen), it's not relevant, because when a Tesla catches fire, it utterly immolates itself and everything around it. That is certainly not true for a gasoline fire once the fire engines roll up, to say nothing of a diesel fire, which are comparatively hard to start and easy to extinguish. It'd be far more informative to compare injuries and damages.

ggm 4y ago

> When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? Why is it that EV fires are so common? What is their commonality, against ICE car fires? Are you subject to a recency/frequency bias in the news, or do you have some citable facts behind this? I see a LOT of news about EV fires, but few about the car fires I know happen because I drive past them. I suggest there is a reporting bias because of the topicality.

aaronmdjones 4y ago

> When was the last time you heard of a gasoline fire in a modern vehicle? A fire in an ICE car 2 months ago shut down our local motorway for over 50 minutes during rush hour. A month prior to that, someone ran their ICE car off the road into a field; it caught fire and the driver died. ICE vehicle fires are common. The difference is that EV vehicle fires are more widely reported upon. You see more stories about EV vehicle fires than ICE vehicle fires, so you think they happen more often.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>The difference is that EV vehicle fires are more widely reported upon A clapped out POS or a crashed vehicle catching fire isn't newsworthy. A vehicle bursting into flames without a good reason is.