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Comment by dangus | Hacker News Reader

Gasoline cars have a much, much higher rate of catching fire per 100,000 vehicles. 100 times higher.

I found it hard to believe, but apparently, it's true - electric vehicles are less likely to catch fire: https://electrek.co/2022/01/12/government-data-shows-gasolin...

Two questions: severity of fire and ease of putting out. Are those measured as well? Because, yeah, actually 100% of gas cars catch fire, given that there is active combustion in the engine. 'Catching fire' (i.e., the fire escaping from the gas engine) is a common cause of breakdown for a gas car, but the fire is easy to put out. Electric battery fires are more difficult from my understanding.

Moreover, in the data you cited, of the nine recalls listed, only 1/9 is caused by a part of the gasoline system, and 8/9 are caused by batteries. Thus, all the fires in gas cars that are cited here are caused by the electrical components, which are scaled up in EVs.

Might that be related to the fact that the average ICE vehicle is much older than the average EV? What if you compared ICE vehicles of similar age and price to EVs? Do late-model ICE Mercedes catch fire as often as Teslas, for example?

Liquids are harder to keep contained than solids. That's mostly it, but also, all the extra complexity of ICEs adds risks too (e.g. lubricant fire are quite common too).

Appreciate the info. Like another commenter, I worry about a fire that starts when my EV is charging, which would burn my house down. I have never worried about a turned-off ICE vehicle burning down my house.

Are the odds of an in-garage, turned-off fire greater for ICE vehicles also, or is that risk mostly on the EV side? I realize it is not a huge risk either way, but I have actually considered parking our EV in our driveway to eliminate small, but non-zero risk of house-burning catastrophe.

Oh, I may have replied to the wrong comment. I was sure it was asking why EVs can be safer, not how things go in practice.

On practice, I have no idea how well built your options of vehicle are. Either one can be dangerous or safe, it's just easier to make an EV safer (even though yes, once a fire starts the EV is almost always worse to deal with.)

This is a whataboutism

Gasoline fires are different than a battery fire. Battery fires are class 2 or self oxidizing. They require substantially more resources to mitigate. A gasoline fire can be extinguished with traditional fire fighting methods. Battery fires basically need to be babysat for a day while they cook off.

As if EVs needed more negative externalities

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