Electric vehicle batteries are prone to catching fire, and those fires are very difficult to put out.
Fact:
The reality is the exact opposite, when it comes to the frequency of EV fires. The Australian firm EV FireSafe keeps track of passenger EV battery fires worldwide. Between 2010 and June 2024, only 511 such fires occurred globally – and this, despite some 60 million EVs being on the road. In Australia, only 14 such fires had occurred between 2010 and April 2026 – 2 from arson, 3 from garage fires spreading to the car, 5 from high speed collisions and 1 from a bushfire. The other 3 were still under investigation at the time the figures were compiled.
The American insurance company AutoInsuranceEZ has looked at the number of fires occurring in three different categories of vehicle in the US. Per 100,000 cars, the respective figures are 25 fires for EVs, 1,530 for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, and 3,475 for hybrid vehicles. In other words, you are 60 times more likely to experience a fire in an ICE vehicle than in an EV, and 139 times more likely in a hybrid.
That said, it is true that fires in EVs are harder to put out than in ICE vehicles, but that is a problem for firefighters, not for drivers. In fact, it is far easier to escape an EV fire than an ICE fire, as the EV fire takes much longer to take hold.