"EVs Catch Fire More Than Gas Cars"
Why a Handful of Viral Videos Don't Match the Data
Quick answer: No. Gas cars catch fire roughly 60x more often than EVs per vehicle on the road — 25.1 fires per 100,000 EVs sold vs. 1,529.9 per 100,000 gas vehicles. EV fires are rarer, but can burn hotter and longer when they do happen.
EV fires get outsized media attention — they look dramatic, they're relatively novel, and video of one spreads fast. That coverage has left a lot of people with the impression that EVs are especially fire-prone. The actual incident-rate data says the opposite.
The Numbers
An AutoinsuranceEZ analysis of National Transportation Safety Board, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and recall data found 25.1 fires per 100,000 EVs sold, compared to 1,529.9 fires per 100,000 gas vehicles sold — meaning a gas car is on the order of 60 times more likely to catch fire than an EV. The researchers themselves note the data has real limitations (far more gas cars are on the road, across a much wider range of ages and conditions), but the gap is wide enough that it's unlikely to flip with better data.
Other analyses using different methodologies land in the same range — one widely cited estimate puts it at roughly 7.2 million miles of EV driving per fire, compared to about 18,000 miles for a gas car.
This tracks with basic mechanics — a gas car carries several gallons of a highly flammable liquid next to a hot engine and exhaust system, running through the vehicle's entire life. An EV's battery is a sealed, monitored pack that only becomes a fire risk under specific failure conditions (physical damage, manufacturing defects, or charging faults).
The Honest Nuance
None of this means EV fires are a non-issue, and being fair to the myth means saying so. When a lithium-ion pack does ignite — usually from a process called thermal runaway — the fire can burn hotter, longer, and be harder for first responders to fully extinguish than a typical gasoline fire, sometimes reigniting hours later. Fire departments have had to develop new training and equipment specifically for this. That's a real difference in fire severity, even though it's rarer in fire frequency.
Reasonable Precautions
The single biggest controllable risk factor is charging equipment quality — a cheap, uncertified charging cable or outlet is a far more common ignition source than the battery pack itself. Using a certified Level 2 home charger installed to code, rather than improvised extension-cord charging, addresses most of the practical risk.
The Bottom Line
By the numbers, an EV is meaningfully safer from a fire-frequency standpoint than the gas car it's replacing. The myth that EVs are especially fire-prone doesn't hold up — the real, defensible concern is that on the rare occasions an EV fire does happen, it can be more severe, which is a fair thing to know rather than a reason to avoid one.