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Like other Tesla fires, the fiery scene in Austin can be tied to the Model X’s high-voltage battery . In Austin, the electric vehicle ignited after a slide across the base of a traffic pole that the driver had knocked down caused the battery on the bottom of the car to rupture. At that point, the impact likely damaged one or several of the tiny cells that power the car’s battery, triggering a chain of chemical reactions that continued to light new flames. Though firefighters were able to put out the fire at the gas station, what remained of the car — little more than a burnt metal frame — reignited at a junkyard just a few hours later.
The Austin crash led to a lot of headlines, but EV fires are relatively rare. Smith said his department has seen just a handful of EV fires. While the US government doesn’t track the number of EV fires, specifically, Tesla’s reported numbers are far lower than the rate for highway fires overall, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) told Vox. The overwhelming majority of car fires are caused by traditional internal combustion vehicles. (This makes sense, in part because these vehicles carry highly flammable liquids like gasoline in their tanks, and, as their name implies, their engines work by igniting that fuel .)
Still, people have started associating EVs with dramatic fires for a few reasons. Videos of EV fires like the one in Austin tend to go viral , often attracting comments that condemn President Joe Biden and the electrification movement. At the same time, misleading posts about EVs spontaneously exploding, or starting fires that can’t be put out with water , have helped promote the narrative that electric vehicles are far less safe than conventional cars. The research doesn’t bear this out. Two recent Highway Loss Data Institute reports found that EVs posed no additional risk for non-crash fires, and the NFPA told Vox that from a fire safety perspective, EVs are no more dangerous than internal combustion cars.
This narrative has another nefarious side effect: It stands to distract from a more complicated EV fire problem. Although they’re relatively rare, electric car fires present a new technical and safety challenge for fire departments. These fires burn at much higher temperatures and require a lot more water to fight than conventional car fires. There also isn’t an established consensus on the best firefi
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