How does the risk of a battery fire in a crash compare with a petrol car?

Every time an EV fire makes the news or circulates on social media, the worry spreads that lithium-ion batteries are dangerous and that EVs burn more readily than petrol cars. EV fires are hard to extinguish and the footage is striking, so they stay in the memory. But impression and frequency are different things, and putting national fire statistics side by side gives a picture that is the opposite of the intuition.

The short answer: (1) EVs catch fire far less often than petrol cars, by factors of tens in country after country, (2) EV fires do have a qualitative difficulty — they are hard to extinguish and prone to reignite — which fire services have to prepare for, and (3) battery chemistry, LFP in particular, is lowering the risk further. Let’s take those in turn.

What the data shows: EVs burn less, not more

Start with frequency. Taken together, analyses put fires per 100,000 vehicles at about 25 for EVs against roughly 1,500 for petrol cars — a rate about one-sixtieth as high [1]. Measured per distance driven, one analysis has an EV fire every 7.2 million miles against every 18,000 miles for a petrol car, a difference of orders of magnitude [1].

National data points the same way. Sweden’s civil contingencies agency recorded just 23 fires among some 610,000 EVs, against 3,400 fires among 4.4 million petrol and diesel cars — internal combustion vehicles burning about 20 times more readily [2]. Polish fire service data for 2020–2025 counted 51,142 vehicle fires, of which only 87 involved EVs [2]. EV FireSafe, the Australian EV fire database, puts the risk of an EV fire at 0.001–0.002% against about 0.1% for petrol and diesel — 50 to 100 times lower [3].

The image of EVs as fire-prone is, statistically, upside down. Petrol cars burn far more often; each individual case is simply less newsworthy, and our impression tilts accordingly.

Why EVs burn less: the structural difference

Understanding why makes the numbers sit right. A petrol car carries tens of litres of a flammable liquid, as the name says, around a hot engine and exhaust system. Fuel leaks, electrical shorts, an overheating engine — the structure offers several ways to start a fire.

An EV has neither a tank of flammable fuel nor a hot engine. A lithium-ion battery can certainly ignite, but it is protected inside a rigid case and watched by a battery management system (BMS) that monitors temperature and voltage continuously and stops charging or discharging when something is wrong. With layers of protection against overcharging, over-discharging and overheating, fires in normal use or in ordinary crashes are rare — exactly as the statistics say.

The difference in kind, honestly: putting the fire out

Rare is not the same as easy to handle. EV fires carry a qualitative difficulty that petrol fires do not, and that deserves plain acknowledgement.

The main mechanism is thermal runaway, in which a fault inside the battery drives a chain of heating and ignition. Once it starts, the cells supply their own oxygen, so ordinary extinguishing methods work poorly and the pack has to be cooled with large volumes of water. Even when the fire appears to be out, it can reignite hours later or the next day. Toxic gases are a documented hazard as well [4], so fire services need a specialised response rather than the one they use on petrol cars.

Countries are building that response: EV-specific extinguishing techniques, immersion tanks, fire blankets designed for vehicles, and training for crews. The work follows from the nature of the problem — rare, but unusual when it happens.

Technology is lowering the risk further

The risk of ignition itself keeps falling, chemistry above all. LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cells, which use neither cobalt nor nickel, are thermally more stable and less prone to thermal runaway. In exchange for somewhat lower energy density they are safer and longer-lived, and their use in EVs has expanded quickly in recent years.

Beyond chemistry, sensors that detect a fault early, structures that stop heat propagating from cell to cell, and eventually solid-state batteries with no flammable electrolyte are all being developed to suppress fire at the source. EV safety is on a path that improves with time.

Insurance premiums, and the whole picture

One common misunderstanding is worth clearing up. EV insurance can cost more than cover for a petrol car, and this is sometimes read as evidence of fire risk. It is not: premiums are higher mainly because repairs are complex and parts are expensive, not because fires are frequent [1]. Frequency data and premiums have to be kept apart.

In short, the worry that EVs burn more readily than petrol cars is plainly contradicted by fire statistics in country after country. The rate is a fraction of a petrol car’s, and structurally an EV is the less flammable vehicle. What remains is a question of kind rather than frequency — the difficulty of extinguishing a fire that does start — and that is being addressed on both the fire service and battery technology sides. The important thing is to judge on frequency data rather than on the strength of an impression.

Summary

Fires are about one-sixtieth as frequent for EVs (about 25 per 100,000 vehicles against roughly 1,500 for petrol) [1].
Sweden (about 20 times), Poland and Australia’s EV FireSafe (50–100 times) agree that the EV risk is lower.
An EV has no flammable fuel and no hot engine, and its BMS guards against overheating and overcharging.
The issue is not frequency but kind — thermal runaway makes fires hard to put out and prone to reignite. Fire services and extinguishing techniques are adapting.
The shift to thermally stable chemistries such as LFP lowers the risk further.
Higher EV premiums come from repair costs, not fire risk.

Not “more flammable” but “more conspicuous” — that is what lies behind the misunderstanding.

References and data sources

[1]: Recharged. (2025). EV fire risk statistics vs gas cars (2025 data). https://recharged.com/articles/ev-fire-risk-statistics-vs-gas-car/ (about 25 per 100,000 EVs against roughly 1,500 for petrol, fires per distance driven, premiums driven by repair costs)

[2]: EVinfo.net. (2025, November). EVs are far less likely to catch fire than gas-powered cars. https://evinfo.net/2025/11/evs-far-less-likely-to-catch-fire-than-gas-powered-cars/ (Sweden: 23 fires among 611,000 EVs against 3,400 among 4.4 million; Polish fire service 2020–2025)

[3]: EV FireSafe (Australia). EV battery fire data. (EV fire risk 0.001–0.002%, internal combustion about 0.1%) See also: Interesting Engineering. (2025). Do EVs really catch fire more? https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/do-electric-vehicles-really-catch-fire-more

[4]: Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI). EV fires vs gas-powered vehicle fires: air contamination risks. https://fsri.org/research-update/ev-fires-vs-gas-powered-vehicle-fires-air-contamination-risks-explored-new-article