Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by londons_explore 1821 days ago
Do EV battery fires cause many deaths? I would imagine that "I crashed the car into a highway barrier at 70 mph" kills far more people than "It caught fire in my garage overnight".

The case of "I crashed but then my car caught fire before emergency services could give me medical help" is hard to categorize, and may be substantial...

2 comments

I cant think of a single case where a EV just started on fire and killed someone. Its possible that the Bolt EV burned down some houses but I'm not entirely sure. Most of the time its a terrible crash that causes the cars to start on fire. But those are usually horrendous crashes that would have probably killed the occupant in the first place.
I don't have a good number on this, but its a more risky issue than "my infotainment display died" or "my backup camera stopped working".

Basically, the unknown unknowns for vehicle manufacturers is skyrocketing since they are now working outside of core competencies be that EVs, software driven power trains, or backup cameras.