Just after we recorded Episode #423 (embedded below) we learnt about the awful fire in the short stay car park at London Luton Airport.
Heading over to Twitter / X.com we found an enormous amount of FUD circulating about how the cause of the fire was an EV.
As our listeners know, Mike and I spend quite a lot of time looking into FUD, debunking and featuring the best of it on our show (for comedy purposes, more than anything!) So we were expecting the anti-EV crowd to come out swingling their rubbish.
By the time Mike and I had finished laughing at all the ridiculous posts, we were still on our “post podcast WhatsApp call” and it was early hours of the morning. Nevertheless, we decided to work out the odds of the cause of the fire being an EV.
We had different approaches, but we eventually came to very similar results.
We both used a combination of conservative information in this infographic and took official figures for the number of cars in the car park and RAC statistics on number of ICE and EVs on the roads.
Through different calculations, we both concluded that the chances of the fire being caused by an EV was around 0.0012% – This seems incredibly low, and it is.
But don’t just take our word for it! – The EV Fire Safe, supported by the Australian Government have their own analysis on the statistics. They claim that with an EV, you have a 0.0012% chance of fire, where as with an ICE, there is a 0.1% chance.
So are the statistics showing that you’re 100x less likely to have a car fire if you own an EV vs an ICE vehicle? One thing is for sure, don’t believe everything you see online, especially when it comes to EVs.
Oh and yes, I forgot, the fire was started by a “Diesel-powered vehicle”, as quoted from chief fire officer.
