Are Electric Cars More Likely to Catch Fire? What the Real Data Shows
Are Electric Cars More Likely to Catch Fire? What the Real Data Shows
A burning EV makes for dramatic footage — the fire burns longer, it's harder to extinguish, and it sometimes reignites hours later. That drama is exactly why it ends up on the news and in your social feed far more often than the much more routine sight of a gasoline car fire on the side of the highway. The actual data, pulled from federal transportation safety records across multiple countries, tells a very different story about which vehicle you're statistically more likely to see catch fire.
The Headline Numbers
A widely cited analysis by AutoinsuranceEZ, examining National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) incident data against Bureau of Transportation Statistics sales figures, found the following fire rates per 100,000 vehicles sold:
| Vehicle Type | Fires per 100,000 Vehicles Sold |
|---|---|
| Hybrid vehicles | 3,474.5 |
| Gasoline vehicles | 1,529.9 |
| Electric vehicles | 25.1 |
Source: AutoinsuranceEZ analysis of NTSB and Bureau of Transportation Statistics data, as reported by multiple outlets including MotorWeek and Kelley Blue Book.
That works out to gasoline vehicles catching fire at roughly 61 times the rate of electric vehicles — and hybrids, somewhat counterintuitively, coming in highest of all three categories. According to Kelley Blue Book's coverage of the study, researchers concluded plainly that despite the news focus on EV fires, "they are not inherently more dangerous than gas or hybrid vehicles" — though they were careful to add an important caveat worth taking seriously: electric fires do tend to be more difficult than gas fires to extinguish.
It's Not Just One Study — The Pattern Repeats Internationally
This isn't a single U.S. analysis that happens to favor one conclusion. According to MotorWeek's reporting, which compiled data across several countries:
- Norway — the world's leader in EV adoption — found through its Directorate for Social Security and Emergency Preparedness that internal combustion vehicles are four to five times more likely to suffer a fire incident than EVs.
- Sweden's Civil Contingencies Agency recorded 3.8 fires per 100,000 electric or hybrid vehicles, compared to 68 per 100,000 for internal combustion vehicles.
- Australia's Department of Defence found a 0.0012% likelihood of battery-electric vehicles catching fire, versus 0.1% for internal combustion vehicles.
- Tesla specifically reported one fire event per 130 million miles driven in 2022 — compared to a general average of one vehicle fire per 18 million miles across all vehicle types, based on data from the NFPA and U.S. Department of Transportation.
Independent reporting from Interesting Engineering adds another data point: Australia's EV FireSafe project, which maintains a verified global database of EV fire incidents, estimates EV fire risk at 0.001–0.002%, compared to approximately 0.1% for petrol and diesel vehicles — remarkably consistent with the separate Australian Department of Defence figures above.
Why Perception and Reality Have Drifted So Far Apart
This is the more interesting question than the raw numbers themselves. A few real factors explain the gap:
- EV fires genuinely are harder to fight and more visually dramatic, which makes them more newsworthy regardless of how rare they are. A fire that burns for hours, gets "put out," and then reignites makes a far more compelling headline than a routine gas fire extinguished in minutes.
- Thermal runaway is a real, distinct phenomenon. Once a lithium-ion battery cell overheats, it can generate its own heat and oxygen internally, propagating from cell to cell in a way that's fundamentally different from an ordinary combustion fire — which is exactly why firefighting tactics have had to change.
- Classic availability bias. People remember dramatic, rare EV fire footage far more vividly than they remember the thousands of unremarkable gas car fires that happen every year without making the news.
The Part That's Genuinely Different: How These Fires Actually Behave
This is where the story gets more nuanced than "EVs are just safer, full stop." The NFPA, in a national training program, has specifically acknowledged that firefighters have a century of experience extinguishing gasoline fires quickly, but lithium-ion battery fires present a genuinely different technical challenge.
MotorWeek goes inside an NFPA-developed training program teaching firefighters how lithium-ion battery fires behave differently from gasoline fires, and why.
NFPA training manager Andrew Klock explained the core technical issue directly in that segment: with a gasoline fire, firefighters know how to extinguish it quickly based on decades of experience. But lithium-ion batteries "generate their own heat and their own oxygen" once thermal runaway begins, which means the standard approach shifts — water is used specifically to cool the battery cells and stop the heat from propagating from one cell to the next, rather than simply smothering flames the way a gas fire is handled.
The scale of the training response reflects how seriously this is being taken: according to Klock, the NFPA has run electric and hybrid vehicle safety training for 14 years, reaching roughly 350,000 of the 1.2 million firefighters in the U.S. — with a newer, Department of Energy-funded program specifically targeting lithium battery fire scenarios now being rolled out nationally.
What This Actually Means If You Own or Are Buying an EV
- Statistically, you're meaningfully less likely to experience a vehicle fire in an EV than in a gas or hybrid car. This conclusion holds up across multiple independent datasets from different countries, not just one U.S. study.
- If an EV fire does happen, expect a different response than you'd see with a gas fire. It may take longer to fully extinguish, and first responders may use more water and take additional precautions against reignition — this isn't a sign something is going unusually wrong, it's the correct, trained-for procedure for this specific type of fire.
- Vehicle age is a factor worth watching going forward. Car fire risk in general correlates with vehicle age, and since most EVs on the road today are still relatively new, some analysts note that EV fire frequency could shift somewhat as the EV fleet ages — a reasonable point of ongoing monitoring rather than a reason for present-day concern.
- Standard fire safety practices still apply. Avoid charging with damaged equipment, address any battery warning lights or unusual heat promptly, and follow manufacturer guidance after any significant impact to the vehicle's underside, since battery pack damage from a severe impact is a more plausible fire trigger than spontaneous failure.
Safety Note
If you are ever near a vehicle fire of any kind — gas, hybrid, or electric — the priority is distance, not diagnosis: move away from the vehicle and call emergency services rather than attempting to assess or extinguish it yourself. EV battery fires specifically can reignite hours after appearing extinguished due to thermal runaway, which is why first responders may keep a recovered EV in an isolated, monitored area rather than releasing it immediately. If your own EV displays a battery warning light, unusual heat, or an unusual smell, treat it with the same urgency you would any other vehicle fire risk — move to a safe location, contact the manufacturer or a qualified EV technician, and avoid charging it until it's been inspected.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are electric cars more likely to catch fire than gas cars?
No — multiple independent analyses using NTSB, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and international fire agency data consistently show gasoline vehicles catch fire significantly more often than electric vehicles, by a factor of roughly 60 times in the most commonly cited U.S. study.
Why do EV fires seem so common if they're actually rare?
EV fires tend to be more visually dramatic, burn longer, and can reignite after appearing extinguished — all of which makes them more newsworthy and memorable than the much more frequent but less dramatic gas car fires that rarely make headlines.
Are hybrid cars more dangerous for fires than EVs or gas cars?
Based on the NTSB-derived data, yes — hybrids showed the highest fire rate per 100,000 vehicles sold among the three categories, higher than both pure gas and pure electric vehicles.
Why are EV fires harder to put out?
Lithium-ion battery cells in thermal runaway generate their own internal heat and oxygen, which means firefighters focus on cooling the battery pack with sustained water application to stop the reaction from spreading cell to cell, rather than simply smothering visible flames as with a gasoline fire.
Can an EV fire reignite after being put out?
Yes — this is a documented characteristic of lithium-ion battery fires specifically, which is why recovered EVs involved in a fire incident are often kept in an isolated, monitored area for a period afterward rather than assumed safe immediately.
The Bottom Line
If you're choosing between a gas, hybrid, or electric vehicle based on fire risk, the data — pulled from federal safety agencies in the U.S., Norway, Sweden, and Australia, not a single cherry-picked source — points the same direction every time: electric vehicles are the least likely of the three to catch fire at all. The real, legitimate nuance isn't about frequency; it's about how differently these fires behave once they do happen, which is exactly why fire departments nationwide have spent over a decade building specialized training for it.
