Quoting from Motor Biscuit (just picking one of a thousand sites offering these kinds of stats):
From 2012 to the year 2020, there was close to one vehicle fire for every 19,000,000 miles traveled. From 2012 to the year 2020, there was one Tesla vehicle fire for every 205,000,000 miles traveled.
That looks pretty damning for ICE cars, doesn’t it? There’s a few mitigating factors, however.
That’s for all cars of all ages. Teslas are (duh!) generally all newer cars. A fairer comparison would be equivalent-generation ICE cars. I’ve not found a study that narrows it that way, though, so no numbers are available.
The data includes cars burned for reasons not related to the vehicle proper. Like arson, say, or externally-imposed flames in things like forest fires.
While yes ICE cars catch fire at a higher rate, they tend not to burn as all-consuming as a Tesla does. Further, gas fires are easy to douse: gasoline isn’t self oxygenating. Battery fires are more intense, last for a whole lot longer, and can’t be doused by simple removal of oxygen since they supply their own. There’s plenty of records of flaming Tesla wrecks being dragged off to the wrecking yard while still on fire and, indeed, still burning in the yard after delivery. Tesla itself notes the potential for long burns and continued re-ignition of fires for as long as 24 hours after it starts.
Rarely does an ICE car have its doors stop working because it caught on fire. There are plenty of scary cases where people in burning Teslas couldn’t get out without someone outside smashing windows or whatnot because the doors stopped working.
Quoting from Motor Biscuit (just picking one of a thousand sites offering these kinds of stats):
That looks pretty damning for ICE cars, doesn’t it? There’s a few mitigating factors, however.
That’s for all cars of all ages. Teslas are (duh!) generally all newer cars. A fairer comparison would be equivalent-generation ICE cars. I’ve not found a study that narrows it that way, though, so no numbers are available.
The data includes cars burned for reasons not related to the vehicle proper. Like arson, say, or externally-imposed flames in things like forest fires.
While yes ICE cars catch fire at a higher rate, they tend not to burn as all-consuming as a Tesla does. Further, gas fires are easy to douse: gasoline isn’t self oxygenating. Battery fires are more intense, last for a whole lot longer, and can’t be doused by simple removal of oxygen since they supply their own. There’s plenty of records of flaming Tesla wrecks being dragged off to the wrecking yard while still on fire and, indeed, still burning in the yard after delivery. Tesla itself notes the potential for long burns and continued re-ignition of fires for as long as 24 hours after it starts.
Rarely does an ICE car have its doors stop working because it caught on fire. There are plenty of scary cases where people in burning Teslas couldn’t get out without someone outside smashing windows or whatnot because the doors stopped working.
Cool, I agree and this is about what I expected as well.