[eftpotrm]

That's incredibly short-sighted, not least because the number of fires per vehicle is orders of magnitude higher for combustion vehicles. I'd be astonished if that made actuarial sense if actually investigated.

I've seen and used underground car chargers in multiple European cities. They're definitely viable.

[toss1]

Yes, except ICE fires are a lot easier to put out (possibly partly because of long experience developing tools & techniques vs for electric fires). Electric cars were also banned at most racetracks for years (not sure if that is still true).

[eftpotrm]

I'm a software engineer not a firefighter, but my understanding is that it's significantly an experience thing. Lithium battery fires clearly aren't trivial to deal with and do burn hotter than petroleum fires, but they're also very much less frequent and firefighters are learning how to handle them.

I'm not sure what the specific issue would be with race tracks. The average road course is very open and a very controlled environment; if you had to deal with a car fire, it's probably among the best places to do so, thanks to lessons learned in the blood of previous generations of drivers and track workers.

[toss1]

Yup, I think experience and new tools & techniques will have battery fires as controllable as gasoline fires relatively soon.

I'm pretty sure the racetrack issue was related to the garages. The pretty much standard rule I've seen at all racetracks I've been to is and absolute "NO FUELING IN THE GARAGE" as in if they even catch you with an open fuel can in the garage you are immediately banned from the premises. They're obviously trying to minimize the risk of one of their building burning down, especially since once a fire started in one team's bay, it would be likely to spread to adjacent bays. I expect they just consider electric fires to start in broader circumstances.

Also, I think it might be relaxing the rules some, as I just checked and at least SCCA is now working on rules for electric cars on road tracks, which presumably means some tracks are more open to it.

[rozap]

It seems that most tracks in the US allow EVs now. A handful of EVs regularly race in 24 hours of lemons which operates all over the US. They don't have charging infrastructure though, so there have been some...creative solutions.