Videos of electric vehicles (EVs) catching fire on social media tend to go viral and reach millions of viewers, creating misconceptions that EVs are dangerous.
In fact, during the same week that such a video was being circulated, over 3,000 gasoline-powered cars caught fire in the United States, but news outlets and social networks didn't pay attention to it.
While gasoline car fires are common and uninteresting to people, EV fires are unusual and exceptional, making them favorites of algorithms, going viral, and being blown up like a big story that scares people.
When examining official data from countries around the world, it is found that electric vehicles are significantly less likely to catch fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.
According to Swedish research, gasoline-powered cars are 20 times more likely to catch fire than electric vehicles, and according to a statement from an Australia-based organization, EVs are 80 times safer than gasoline-powered cars.
Even more surprisingly, hybrid cars, which use both gasoline engines and electric battery systems, have the highest fire risk due to more complex wiring and systems.
However, when EV cars catch fire, due to the nature of lithium-ion batteries, thermal runaway occurs and the fire is extremely difficult to extinguish.
Extinguishing an EV fire requires not only significantly more water than gasoline cars, but also carries the risk of the fire rekindling hours or even days after it appears to be extinguished.
Recently, car manufacturers have been continuously improving the safety of EVs by switching to Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries and solid-state battery technologies that are less likely to catch fire.
Ref: Engineeringjunkies
