Tesla’s (and EV in general), as seen in the extract below are a lot less likely to catch fire than petrol counterparts. The perceived fear about EV’s catching fire can be attributed to misinformation. With increasing presence of EV’s on the road this data is getting more accurate. Currently the data shows clearly that Teslas are less likely to catch on fire than there counterpart ICE Vechiles. Tesla’s battery packs are made up of sub packs with firewall material between each pack to reduce the risk of a fire spreading. In the unlikely event that a fire does happen these firewalls help contain the fire to only 1 part of the pack.
From 2012 – 2019, there has been approximately one Tesla vehicle fire for every 175 million miles traveled. By comparison, data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation shows that in the United States there is a vehicle fire for every 19 million miles traveled. In order to provide an apt comparison to NFPA data, Tesla’s data set includes instances of vehicle fires caused by structure fires, arson, and other things unrelated to the vehicle, which account for some of the Tesla vehicle fires over this time period.
*https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no
