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Again? These ships must make attractive sabotage (or insurance fraud?) targets. > In 2022, a vessel carrying about 4,000 vehicles caught fire in the Atlantic and ended up sinking despite efforts to tow it to safety. A year later another ship with close to 3,000 cars on board caught fire near the Dutch coast.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if the EVs were not the source of the fire, they were surely the cause of the firefighting problems the coast guard had. Once ignited, EV fires are quite a thing.
The intensity of an EV is almost the same as that of an ICE car. A little bit less severe actually. There’s a study from Sweden that set an EV and ICE on fire and measures the energy/heat from the fire over time. The curves are fairly similar. An EV battery is much less likely to catch fire from nearby car fires. A whole parking garage burned down at Sola airport in Norway, with lots of EV inside. Not a single batter…
Normally you can extinguish a fire by depriving it of any of the three things fire needs. But a battery that goes up it has both fuel and oxidizer and will actually tend to react with water by getting hotter. The only solution is either isolation or massive amounts of water or other coolant.
It's not the energy of the fire, it's the difficulty in actually extinguishing it. Think of those trick birthday candles that relight themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The intensity of an EV is almost the same as that of an ICE car. A little bit less severe actually. There’s a study from Sweden that set an EV and ICE on fire and measures the energy/heat from the fire over time. The curves are fairly similar. An EV battery is much less likely to catch fire from nearby car fires. A whole parking garage burned down at Sola airport in Norway, with lots of EV inside. Not a single batter…
This is fundamentally incorrect and even a basic Google search returns: EV and gas-powered vehicle fires pose different challenges to firefighters. EV fires are harder to extinguish due to deep-seated heat in batteries, potential for reignition, and release of flammable and toxic gases. Traditional firefighting techniques might not be sufficient, and specialized equipment like submersion tanks or specific types of fo…
They even note this in the Sola fire report[1], that the EVs did not contribute anything particular compared to regular ICEs to how the fire evolved.
They even say there is so much plastic and composites in modern cars, regardless of power source, that they output twice the heat compared to old cars made mostly of metal.
[1]: https://www.rogbr.no/Rapporter%20og%20utredninger/Evaluering... (page 24)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, EVs are far less likely to spontaneous ignition than ICE cars. The statistics on this is very clear now. Depending on the source an ICE car is 10-20 times of a similar age is more likely to catch fire. Since most EVs are new I would guess the statistics is mostly applicable to fairly new cars, and so should also be applicable to brand new cars. One caveat is there may be some EVs from less reputable Chinese car c…
There's a qualitative difference between a car that's likely to burn on the road when being driven, and one that's likely to burn in the middle of the night when parked in a garage attached to my house.
ICE cars do this all the time. It doesn't make the news as much as a brand new product doing that.
Granted, the "EVs are less likely to start fires" take is also misleading. It's not usually doing a "like for like" comparison, because the majority of ICE fires are in very old and poorly maintained cars. Things like wires chewed through by rats, oil leaking out of gaskets and accumulating, stupid wiring for speakers, etc.
It will depend how gracefully the average EV ages when owned by the average person who ignores maintenance.
Keep in mind we've had old lithium ion batteries for two decades now, and we don't see your average phone store randomly burning down. Or those kiosks you can sell absolutely clapped out, old phones to. How often do those burn down?
Why is this news? ICE cars in container ships catch fire frequently. One example was the Grande Costa D’Avorio at Port Newark in 2023, which resulted in two firefighter fatalities and over $23 million in vessel damage. Not EV related. https://gcaptain.com/ntsb-calls-for-national-reforms-after-f... Bloomberg didn't cover it (at least a quick search didn't find a story) More to the point, ICE vehicles pose fire risks 6…
Their own data is showing that their conclusion might be sketchy. If EVs were so naturally unlikely to start fires, shouldn't hybrids only have a small number more fires per 100000 than ICE vehicles?
Car fires usually come from poorly maintained electrics and leaking oil. How could adding an EV system to that make it so much more likely to ignite, but so unlikely to ignite when it's just the EV?
Most full EVs are still extremely expensive and sold to the luxury market and are even fairly new. How often do fairly new, luxury ICEs and Hybrids ignite?
Ensuring that EVs are drained to be <1% powered should be an obvious hard requirement. This is no matter the mode of transport.
Why is this news? ICE cars in container ships catch fire frequently. One example was the Grande Costa D’Avorio at Port Newark in 2023, which resulted in two firefighter fatalities and over $23 million in vessel damage. Not EV related. https://gcaptain.com/ntsb-calls-for-national-reforms-after-f... Bloomberg didn't cover it (at least a quick search didn't find a story) More to the point, ICE vehicles pose fire risks 6…
> Hybrid vehicles report 3,475 fires per 100,000 vehicles, driven by the complexity of their dual powertrains. Gasoline and diesel cars follow with 1,530 fires, while EVs report significantly fewer at 25 fires. Their own data is showing that their conclusion might be sketchy. If EVs were so naturally unlikely to start fires, shouldn't hybrids only have a small number more fires per 100000 than ICE vehicles? Car fires…
I have no idea, but just spit-balling:
- Heat from the engine causes premature embrittlement of the high voltage wiring harnesses insulation system, causing failures that lead to short circuits. Causing more fires.
- Layers of grime/oil from the engine / oil-changes that gets on power electronic components. Electronic component fails in a way that lets the smoke out. In an EV, this just disables the vehicle. In a hybrid, the extra layer of oil catches on fire.
- Power electronics components under the hood are subject to much higher operating temperatures, due to proximity to the engine, leading to earlier failures, of which some cause fires, due to the closeness of flammable liquids.
- Fully battery electric vehicles are more pampered / maintained / see less severe operating conditions. BEVs more likely to be stored in a garage where they get charged, maybe fewer mice chewing through the high voltage cabling, etc..
- Hybrid batteries are stressed more, from the much more frequent full charge cycles. Batteries also see more heat from living in the engine bay(?). Hybrid batteries are included in more budget-minded vehicles, with lower price points, and so the batteries are sourced from less reliable tier two suppliers with less quality control? Adds up to more failures and more fires?
- Are the more frequent hybrid fires equally distributed across manufactures? Or is Toyota on one end of the spectrum and say Stellantis on the other?
- BEV-only companies have obsessed over weight in the quest for efficiency, which reduces wiring and parts count, which reduces failure points that can cause fires. Where hybrids and EVs from traditional ICE companies have a less optimal BoM, with more components reused from existing product lines, leading to additional complication in the design with more failure points.
- Hybrid fires are predominately associated with crashes. The engine bay is crammed with more components, because of the dual power trains. Crash causes flammable liquids to escape, and a high voltage system failure ignites the flammable liquid. BEVs in a crash would have the ignition source, but no fuel. Gas-only has the leaked fuel, but no ignition source. Hybrids have both.
- Hybrid vehicles are more popular with less affluent owners. Vehicle gets in a moderate accident, cousin Vinny gives it a once over to get things running again, possibly overlooking damage to the high voltage system that manifests as a fire later on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is fundamentally incorrect and even a basic Google search returns: EV and gas-powered vehicle fires pose different challenges to firefighters. EV fires are harder to extinguish due to deep-seated heat in batteries, potential for reignition, and release of flammable and toxic gases. Traditional firefighting techniques might not be sufficient, and specialized equipment like submersion tanks or specific types of fo…
The point GP made was that unless the fire starts in the battery, the battery is unlikely to catch fire. Thus when an EV catches fire, as opposed to starts a fire, in the EV burns about the same as an ICE. They even note this in the Sola fire report[1], that the EVs did not contribute anything particular compared to regular ICEs to how the fire evolved. They even say there is so much plastic and composites in modern…
The fact that EV fires are more difficult to extinguish and produce substantially more toxic byproducts than regular gasoline powered cars is well established.
The toxicity of battery fires is widely reported: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/california-battery-pla...
Last month, a battery-storage plant went up in flames and burned for days, prompting the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents and shutting down local schools. The plant, located in Moss Landing, an unincorporated community in Monterey County, is the largest facility in the world that uses lithium-ion batteries to store energy. Residents have reported feeling ill, and many of them worry that the fire polluted the air, soil and water with toxins.
“Now you don’t see anybody walking outside because it’s terrifying, everything that’s going on,” said Esmeralda Ortiz, who had to evacuate from her home in Moss Landing after the plant began burning on Jan. 16.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point GP made was that unless the fire starts in the battery, the battery is unlikely to catch fire. Thus when an EV catches fire, as opposed to starts a fire, in the EV burns about the same as an ICE. They even note this in the Sola fire report[1], that the EVs did not contribute anything particular compared to regular ICEs to how the fire evolved. They even say there is so much plastic and composites in modern…
I have no idea what this says. Quite literally every single English language reference returned by a simple search refutes the assertion that EV fires are not more difficult or toxic than a regular car. The fact that EV fires are more difficult to extinguish and produce substantially more toxic byproducts than regular gasoline powered cars is well established. The toxicity of battery fires is widely reported: https:/…
The assertion is that EV fires are not particularly more difficult than ICE vehicle fires if the battery has not entered thermal runaway.
Most EV fires do not start in the battery (at least for EVs that are not involved in a collision).
And while the battery certainly can enter thermal runaway by an external fire heating it up sufficiently, it's not a given as real-world examples like the Sola fire shows as well as various research. Here are some quotes from a paper about full-scale EV fire tests[1]:
In both cases the fire ignition took place in the rear seats. However, it has to be mentioned that in the case of the BEV, the battery was not involved in the fire for the first 800 s (full voltage in all cells of the battery).
However, the test also showed that although the vehicle had already burned for more than 10 min, the battery was still not involved in the fire and the temperature inside the battery was well below 50 °C
In the tests they forced thermal runaway after a while, by shorting the batteries.
Here's[2] another, smaller study where they tried to initiate a thermal runaway by placing a propane burner under the battery, but failed as they removed it too soon.
The burner was in place for 12 minutes, at which point the rest of the car had caught fire which also contributed to heating the battery. Yet no thermal runaway occurred.
Modern cars, EVs and ICEs alike, have more flammable material in the form of plastics than in their batteries or gas tanks[3]. And those plastics also release a lot of toxic smoke when burning. Sure, if the battery catches fire it will release nasty HF gas, but it's not like fumes from an ICE fire is healthy stuff.
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037971122...
[2]: https://www.fireproductsearch.com/full-scale-electric-vehicl...
[3]: https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/wp-content/upload...