[Electric car vs internal combustion engine fire]

[Electric car vs internal combustion engine fire]

Concerns have been spreading due to a series of electric car fires over the past week. However, if you repeatedly read the news through the media, you can misunderstand the reality of the matter. Through data from the National Fire Agency released this spring

1) How many more fires electric cars have caught compared to internal combustion locomotives
2) How many deaths occurred in the fire
3) How many fires have broken out while parked/stopped

I checked it. The supply of electric vehicles is increasing, so I compared it with 23 years of data.

1) fire frequency
As of the end of 23, there are 25.5 million registered vehicles nationwide, of which 12.31 million are gasoline, 9.5 million are diesel, 540,000 are electric, and 3.15 million are LPG+hybrid+hydrogen+others. (The following applies to 540,000 electric vehicles and 25 million internal combustion engines for convenience of frequency/probability calculation.)

Internal combustion locomotives: 3736 cases / 25 million units = 0.015%
Electric vehicles: 72 cases / 540,000 units = 0.013%

Internal combustion locomotives have a slightly higher fire frequency, but the difference is not large.

2) Deaths in the event of a fire

The internal combustion engine killed 31 people in 3,736 fires.
Electric cars killed zero people in 72 fires.

Internal combustion locomotive: 31 deaths / 3,736 cases = 0.8%
Electric vehicles: 0 people died / 72 cases = 0%

Even if you look at the three-year 21-23 data, there are no deaths from fires in electric vehicles. However, there were deaths in December 20 and January 24, so if you include this,

Internal combustion locomotive (3 years): 79 deaths / 10933 cases = 0.7%
Electric vehicles (3 years and 2 months): 2 deaths / 141 cases = 1.4%

It is not easy to judge due to the lack of samples of electric vehicles, but riding an electric car in case of a fire is not much more likely to die than an internal combustion engine.

3) a fire in a parking/stop state
(Electric cars add up to parking, charging, and stopping)

Internal combustion locomotives: 690 cases / 25 million units = 0.0028%
Electric vehicles: 37 cases / 540,000 units = 0.0069%

Electric cars are more than twice as likely as internal combustion locomotives to cause fires in parking and stopping conditions.

In summary, internal combustion locomotives are slightly more likely to catch fire than electric vehicles, electric vehicles are more likely to die in the event of a fire, and electric vehicles are twice as likely to catch fire while parked.

You have to check the facts based on the data to establish effective measures. We hope for more research from specialized institutions.

(The link is in the comments)