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Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

Keep in mind, in the US most people park ICE vehicles (sometimes 2-3 at a time) in garages attached or part of their dwellings all the time. And those not only catch fire more regularly, but contain far more energy.

Aka people do dumb stuff all the time. And mostly survive. Frankly, this isn’t likely to even be top ten from an actuarial basis.

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This is the first time I’ve seen a claim that ICE vehicles are more likely to have catastrophic fires while parked than EVs. Is that true? Any source?

https://www.google.com/search?q=recall+%22park+outside%22

These recalls from Ford, GM, and Kia are each millions of vehicles. And the number of these recalls is going up: https://turnto10.com/i-team/consumer-advocate/serious-park-o...

It's always been a significant risk; why do you think there are strict building code regs for the garage area of a home?

If I did put batteries in my house, I'd want them mounted on wheels so if they overheat I can push them out before things get exciting. Those do exist, and apart from storing juice for your house they can also take you places...

There is no way you could get close enough to a battery bank this size to push them once they started to catch on fire and not die. You might as well be trying to put out a kiddy pool of gasoline with your hands.

[https://alliedworldinsurance.com/risk-management/electric-ve...]

Far more often. Battery fires can be much harder to put out, but gasoline fires are no slouch frankly.

Thanks for the great link! Unfortunately it doesn’t speak specifically to parked/charging, which is when I would expect EV’s to be at the greatest risk and ICE’s to be at their lowest risk.

But still, seems pretty clear that EV’a are likely no more risky and possibly considerably less so in the garage. Thanks!

ICE vehicles are at risk when starting and stopping, and those happen in garages a lot.

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