My 97 jetta did this in my 20s.
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Electric Vehicles
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It's odd how electric car fires get attention, while petrol is famously non-combustible.
I was really hoping for a different type of ICE car to be on fire...
BMW just announced another fire recall.
These cars all have highly pressurized fuel systems and more and more cheap plastic parts connecting them that are designed to fail within a set number of heat cycles. When the plastic cracks, high pressure atomized fuel sprays all over a hot engine. This has been a problem for 15 years, and still plastic connectors are normal.
Ah yes, the ECE: externally combusting engine.
ICE fires get the attention they deserve, the difference between an ICE fire and a BEV fire is in the scale and intensity and the fact that a lithium battery fire is impossible to stop with normal firefighter equipment.
BEV fires are orders of magnitude more dangerous and lethal.
Have you ever heard of anyone dying because their ICE car caught fire? This is an issue especially with Tesla, where the manual handles are hidden, preventing people from getting out quickly enough.
In case of a BEV fire, you only have seconds to exit the car, otherwise you are toast.
PS:
Just in case someone thinks I'm making anti BEV propaganda, I own a VW ID.4 which I am very happy with.
Have you ever heard of anyone dying because their ICE car caught fire?
That is not ICE cars but ALL cars. Obviously we already know people die in BEV fires.
If you die in an ICE car fire, the reason is probably that you crashed and are unconscious.
I should have been more specific, I meant die in an ICE car fire, as in CAUGHT by the fire unable to get out quickly enough despite being conscious.
Cars crumple when they crash and sometimes the crumpling pins people inside. That’s the whole reason we have the jaws of life. You don’t have to be unconscious to die in a car fire of any type, just unlucky.
Plenty of people have died in ICE fires.
This was half the problem with the Ford Pinto - the big name in burning people alive after minor collisions.
All Detroit cars at that time had the same gas tank design, it's just Ford was singled out by lawyers because they had more money.
This is nonsense. Not getting out because of stupid electric door handles is a problem that's very specific to tesla, not something that is inherently systemic to the electric drive train. It's a manufacturer issue, not a propulsion issue. Dying in an ICE fire might result from a bunch of reasons, from unconsciousness to being stuck in a crumpled car to doors not opening simply because they're deformed.
Battery fires may emit more hazardous fumes but at the same time electric cars are much more unlikely to catch fire. I have never seen statistics that could even remotely suggest battery electric cars are more dangerous - it's usually quite the opposite.
that’s very specific to tesla,
No Tesla is the worst, but many other brands have copied Tesla in the design of fully electronic door handles.
So much so EU has decided to regulate it, and in China such door handles as the Tesla has are now illegal.
but at the same time electric cars are much more unlikely to catch fire.
This is true
many other brands have copied Tesla in the design of fully electronic door handles.
Care to share some examples?
AFAIK KIA and Xpeng, but you'll just have to look it up, I don't remember the brands.
I Just know that although Tesla is the worst for hiding the manual, they are not entirely alone in this.
In fact the car I bought is a VW ID.4, and one of the reasons is that the handle although electric can work as manual if the power is out.
This was specifically demonstrated in several car reviews of the car.
I tried to look them up but wasn't really successful... For kia, it seems to be the ev6 that might have them but I found owners that said there's still a physical connection to open the doors without 12v power. I also found some that said they had issues with a deadlock mechanism that was specifically built to disengage door handles as a security measure, which seems weird enough, but not really what we're talking about. Xpeng is hard because if you search for that one and electric door handles you end up getting a lot of articles that those types of door handles have been completely banned in China but not really anything specific to xpeng.
The point remains though - even if it's not exclusively a tesla problem, it's not connected to the propulsion system either. Electric cars don't lock you in burning cars because they're electric. On the opposite, the doors being hooked to the 12v system would make them just as available in combustion cars.
The point was that there are relatively more deaths due to battery fires than gas fires, despite battery fires are rare, and part of the reason is that we have heard about them have been these stupid door handles. And because you need to get out quicker.
Previous to electric cars, I had never heard about anyone being caught in a car and die because it caught on fire.
The point was that there are relatively more deaths due to battery fires than gas fires
I strongly doubt that this is true. I have never seen any such numbers and EV fires are so rare that I consider any such statement without the numbers to back it up to be baseless fearmongering. That's not to say that I can't be convinced otherwise, but please, give me some sources to back that up.
Previous to electric cars, I had never heard about anyone being caught in a car and die because it caught on fire.
Because EVs were new and had a novelty aspect to them (and a lobby against them) and because fires in ICEs are so common they're usually not reported.
I strongly doubt that this is true.
Maybe there aren't, but relative to we heard about this already early on with Tesla, when there were way way less than 1% of cars on the road that were electric, and ALL electric cars were new, I think there actually was a higher frequency of this problem with EV vars. BUT and that's a huge but, batteries have improved a lot since Tesla model S was introduced. So it may not be true anymore.
without the numbers to back it up
This has almost seemed like a cover up to me, we've heard about a multitude of problems with especially Tesla, but it has been very difficult to find for instance accident statistics.
A couple of years back however some were released that showed that Tesla indeed is the most accident prone brand on the road in USA.
Here in Denmark we have seen completely unheard of failure rates at mandatory safety checks for Tesla model 3 last year with 35% failure rate! That in itself is insane, but this year the 2021 model Y had a failure rate of 45% 😱 The average i 8% and that includes cars of all ages, where the 2021 model Y had this failure rate at their first check that is when the car is 4 years old.
It's insanely annoying IMO that these kinds of data aren't always publicly available.
PS I bough a VW ID.4 and for that model the failure rate at the first mandatory safety check is less than 2%!!
Not buying a Tesla is a no brainer IMO, even the cheapest Chinese cars have way better record at these safety checks. And it's a similar picture for Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, so it's not just Denmark.
Incidentally a Tesla model Y cost about twice as much as mine in insurance! Which is also somewhat telling, although the companies again don't reveal the stats behind that difference in price.
I think there actually was a higher frequency of this problem with EV vars.
No. I stand by my point there... As far as I know, there has never been any data that pointed in the direction of EVs being anything but a much lower fire hazard than ICEs. If you had other numbers I'd gladly accept those but it seems you don't do maybe you should just consider that your impression is wrong.
Here in Denmark we have seen completely unheard of failure rates at mandatory safety checks for Tesla model 3
Failure rate for mandatory tests refers to a lot of things, most of which aren't immediate hazards and all of which don't refer to the high voltage battery fire probabilities. It's a terrible sign that tesla fails these, but this has nothing to do with batteries spontaneously igniting.
This has almost seemed like a cover up to me
Dude... It's just data that hasn't been prepared in a way you'd like it. That doesn't mean there's a conspiracy going on.
Did you read it?
As indicated in Figure 13, large truck fires were more likely to begin with the ignition of a tire than other items. Tire ignitions were also more common in bus fires than car fires. The two most common items first ignited among all highway vehicles were (1) electrical wire or cable insulation and (2) a flammable liquid or gas in or from the engine or burner. Incidents where the item first ignited included a flammable liquid or gas were the deadliest. An estimated 50 percent of the civilian deaths occurred in these incidents.
Turns out, when a big tank of gasoline is set on fire, it’s deadly.
Turns out, when a big tank of gasoline is set on fire, it’s deadly.
That has absolutely zero to do with the car which is not a car but a truck being ICE.
Read carefully.
…among all highway vehicles…
That paragraph is about both trucks and cars. The average car has what, a 12 gallon tank of gasoline? That’s an incredible amount of flammable liquid.
What are you on about that electric cars have to be more dangerous for you? Are you heavily invested in an oil company or something?
I mean, being covered in gasoline that is on fire is generally not an easy thing to survive.
Yes and that happens all the time. /s
600 times a year. It happens so frequently, it's not news, like mass shootings.
Vehicle fires report | NFPA Research https://share.google/BoVl5eecmZQF51wcs
It literally does. Hundreds of times every year in the US alone. Car crashes can be pretty fucking horrible, man. Fuel spilling out of the tank is fairly common in bad accidents.
Do y'all keep fire extinguishers in y'all's cars in DE?
I'm from Denmark but no, it's pretty rare, but in this case it meant it was a relatively minor fix to get the car going again.
I haven't seen the evidence to suggest that BEV fires are orders of magnitude more dangerous, as you claim. I have seen the evidence to suggest that they are orders of magnitude less likely.
Yes they burn hotter and are harder to extinguish, but I understand that generally they spread slower and with more warning, allowing greater time for escape (unless you are stuck in a Tesla and haven't read the manual cover to cover).
ICE cars are more likely to explode, BEV cars take longer (in general) to become fully engulfed.
If there is a credible evidence source / study looking at fatalities per fire (which corrects for the stupid door handles) then I'd be very interested to read it.
Reminds me of some good media literacy advice. If you see something bad happen on the news it's probably not worth worrying about because if it were common they wouldn't be reporting it. It's overwhelmingly likely that whatever kills you will be boring.
Its new, needs special equipment which isnt yet standard issue, and burns unstoppably and more ferociously.
Most ICE fires come from broken fuel lines which are under 30-60 psi of pressure, spraying fuel air mixture over a hot exhaust manifold.
Lemmy is like Reddit, lots of opinions from people who have no idea how cars work and they think that if it's not in media, it didn't happen.
A fuel tank often does burst into flames if it is torn open and sprays fuel into the air, though. Watch enough NASCAR and you’ll see it for yourself.
A lithium battery does, and it escalates rapidly
FTFY
Lithium iron phosphate doesn't typically combust when punctured, so I think you'd still need to add a qualification to that statement.
Not really since I didn't limit it to that, but instead left in the word "batteries" and thus all the additional internal composition & structure they typically have.
It's also true that explosions are far more likely to occur in an ICE fire than EV fire - EVs tend to smoke and then slowly burn to a more ferocious fire, but in general provide more warning and time to escape than ICE fires (as well as being less likely to happen in the first place). ICE fuel is designed to explode (especially gas / petrol).
No, that's not actually true. None of what you claim here is true without qualifications that make your statements meaningless.
Here's your qualifications.
https://www.evfiresafe.com/ev-fire-key-findings
I look forward to your suitably sourced rebuttal.