Over the past year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) registered approximately 216,000 vehicle fires in the United States. Even though footage of Tesla models burning out in particular is regularly circulated and invites closer scrutiny of the fire risk of EVs, research by AutoinsuranceEZ suggests that BEVs are the safest bet when it comes to catching fire.
According to data compiled by the car insurance comparison portal, plug-in hybrids and hybrid-electric cars are more likely to catch fire than all other power source types, amounting to 3,474 fires per 100,000 sales. Taking the second spot are regular gasoline- or diesel-powered cars, while only 25 BEVs by 100,000 sales burned out in 2021. Nevertheless, over 150,000 BEV units were recalled by Hyundai and Chevrolet this past year due to possible fire hazards surrounding the batteries used. This number pales in comparison to the cars with internal combustion engines (ICE) though: 430,000 Hyundai Elantras alone were recalled in 2021 due to the potential of electric shorting, with manufacturers recalling a total of roughly 1.1 million gas-powered cars.
In 2020, 761,100 cars with hybrid or fully electric power trains were sold in the U.S., 240,053 of which were categorized as BEVs. Overall, the retail sales of new cars amounted to 3.4 million units in the same year.
