Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

And EV fires are even rarer.

The people who study fires disagree with your other points:

https://www.ri.se/sites/default/files/2020-12/FRIC%20D1.2-20...

> Observations during the fire indicate that electric vehicles did not contribute to the fire development beyond what is expected from conventional vehicles.

There are 100k vehicle fires every year in the UK yet the small amount of EV fires make headlines. The petrol and diesel fires are so common you don’t even hear about them.

The fact that you quote the daily mail is the cherry on top - remember when the diesel car burned down Luton airport? The daily mail commenters were calling for the banning of EVs over this.

One ferry company with two ferries banned EVs as an overreaction.

Insurance costs went up for lots of cars, but for EVs it was the high repair costs.

If you do even a little research you will see that EV fires are at least 20x less likely than ICE car fires. The spreaders of misinformation will have you believe that ICE cars are easier to put out - maybe, but why didn’t the TWO fire extinguishers put out the diesel car before it burned down the car park at Luton? What about the car park at Liverpool?

Even with the larger proportion of NMC batteries out there the fires are 20x less likely. LFP batteries are even less likely to go into thermal runaway and they are becoming more prevalent.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/norwegian-ferry-company-b...

> Li-Ion batteries in electric vehicles pose a significant fire risk, which was further emphasized after the Felicity Ace cargo ship sank almost a year ago.

The Felicity Ace sank and therefore no cause was found. How are they coming to these conclusions? And YOU talk about the media pushing a narrative?

> Statistics tell us that electric vehicles catch fire from time to time, although those fires are far less common than people imagine.

This part is at least true. I know you said you won’t believe the real stats since you’ve made up your mind based on a narrative you’ve been fed, but here they are: https://thedriven.io/2023/05/16/petrol-and-diesel-cars-20-ti...

> Only 23 fires were reported in electric vehicles in 2022 making up just 0.004% of Sweden’s fleet of 611,000 EVs.

> In contrast, over the same period, some 3,400 fires we reported in 2022 from Sweden’s 4.4 million petrol and diesel cars representing 0.08% of the fossil car fleet.

> This means that in 2022 a petrol or diesel car in Sweden was around 20 times more likely to catch fire than an electric vehicle.

> Furthermore, fires in electric cars are declining. The MSB says the number of fires in electric cars has been around 20 a year over the last three years, although the number of electric cars over that tie has almost doubled. Presumably, this is due to EV makers improving fire suppressing designs in newer models.

Back to your article:

> It’s unclear what started the fire, but the hundreds of electric cars onboard made it impossible to extinguish.

That’s what they said about The Fremantle Highway when it was on fire, let’s see what happened when they towed it back to port:

> However, between 900 and 1000 cars including the EVs appeared to be in good condition, the chief of salvage company Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, Peter Berdowski, told media last week.

Huh, that’s weird. Looks like the daily mail readers were wrong about that too (surprise!).

The Driven |https://thedriven.io › 2023/08/14Sorry EV haters, big ship fire probably wasn't caused by electric cars

Let’s look at Liverpool: Liverpool car park fire: Hundreds of burnt-out vehicles removed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-46290095

1,000 cars burnt out in a car park fire in 2018. How many EVs do you think were in there 6 years ago? One? Two? It was 99% ICE vehicles along with the one that caused it. I’m sure no toxic fumes were produced as a result of the ICE cars burning lol.

> Many people believe that the media is lying about Luton

Many daily mail readers were saying it was an EV before the fire service even said anything. Here’s what they said:

> The fire service can confirm the initial vehicle involved in the fire was a diesel car.

https://www.bedsfire.gov.uk/news/major-incident-declared-lut...

Funnily enough this fits with the video of the vehicle showing the number plate: https://x.com/andysoullinux/status/1712232395049422942?s=46&...

The video gives an excellent view of those TWO fire extinguishers that failed to put out the fire too. Those ICE vehicles sure are easy to put out!

Facebook and YouTube algorithms are feeding people scary videos and the daily mail and its ilk will happily feed the narrative too. The stats and facts simply don’t back the level of FUD they are amplifying. It’s like refusing to fly over driving over safety fears after looking at a few plane crashes.

> You ought to consider the incentives behind the media push to assure people that EVs are safe.

You ought to do the same, who is pushing the anti-EV narrative? They tried to spread misinformation about range, battery replacement costs (bingo on your post), fires and so much more yet people are realising EVs are viable and cheaper to run. I run my EV for 3p/mile and certain people don’t like that. They are ramping these articles up since sales are still going up ( despite the headlines saying it’s “slowing”). It’s a shame so many people believe it without questioning it.