Electric and Hydrogen Vehicles

[atpollard]

“From 2012 – 2020, there has been approximately one Tesla vehicle fire for every 205 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.”

Interesting what happens when you compare fires per mile travelled instead of just “per 100,000 vehicles”. Apparently it is more of a fire danger to DRIVE an ICE car that to PARK an EV car.

FYI, 46% of IC vehicle fires are from the electrical wiring (which is nearly identical on an EV), so more EV use will see more EV electrical fires in the vehicle wiring and narrow that “per 100,000 vehicle” gap.

 

[Spinward Flow]

“From 2012 – 2020, there has been approximately one Tesla vehicle fire for every 205 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.”

Or to put it another way, Tesla vehicles are 205/19=10.789x less likely to catch fire than the average car.

Apparently it is more of a fire danger to DRIVE an ICE car that to PARK an EV car.

True ... although it depends on the brand of vehicle manufacturer (and their parts suppliers). Some manufacturers source from parts/build their products in ways that are more likely to catch fire than is "preferable by the consumer" ... hence advisories to park some brands of EVs away from structures (or anything else that can burn, really) due to poor engineering design and quality control during production.

A different way of making this point ... that some manufacturers produce fewer defective products (which then require recalls) ... can be seen in a different data set that has nothing to do with fire risks (so tangential topic shift).

Source: LINK

In order, the automakers with the most U.S. recall campaigns in 2025 were:

1. Ford Motor Company – 152 recalls
2. Stellantis (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram) – 53 recalls
3. General Motors – 27 recalls
4. Volkswagen – 24 recalls
5. Mercedes-Benz – 21 recalls
6. Honda – 21 recalls
7. BMW – 21 recalls
8. Hyundai – 21 recalls
9. Toyota – 15 recalls
10. Tesla – 11 recalls

If you calculate the average of those 10 manufacturers, you get this result:

• 152+53+27+24+21+21+21+21+15+11 = 366 / 10 = 36.6 recalls per manufacturer in 2025 on average

However, two manufacturing brands were obviously higher than average ... Ford (4.15x) and Stellantis (1.45x) ... in the above chart, so make of that what you will.

Take the "skew" in the average due to the outliers (Ford and Stellantis) out of the mix and with the remaining 8 manufacturers you get this as the average for 2025:

• 27+24+21+21+21+21+15+11 = 161 / 8 = 20.125 recalls per manufacturer in 2025 on average.

By this standard, Toyota and Tesla were the only companies with fewer recalls than the (truncated) average that omitted the top two offenders outliers.



Something similar is going on with battery chemistries (specifically, NMC chemistries based on Nickel Manganese Cobalt) are more fire prone than others, some battery form factors are more fire prone than others ("pouch" cells rather than blades or cylindrical "can" cells) and a lot of other factors that go into the fire risks of battery engineering.

Fortunately, newer LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries are lower power density than NMC (so higher weight for the same capacity) but are far less fire prone. China has promulgated new regulations around fire prevention testing/validation of batteries intended for use in vehicles to improve safety around battery combustion issues, including what amounts to basically "not allowed to catch fire even when damaged/pierced" and a bunch of other testing regimens to prove fire safety. Sodium based chemistries are also a lot less likely to catch fire ... so there are a lot of advancements in engineering fire prevention into newer battery designs.

 

[aramis]

The problem with hydrogen (as a power source) is that it doesn't appear as "something that can be mined" in pockets of H₂ gas "conveniently lying around, ready to be pumped" from any natural sources. Hydrogen almost ALWAYS appears in molecular form bound to other elements (H₂O, CH₄, NH₃, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.), meaning that in order to "get at" the H₂ you have to "crack" the molecules you're wanting to source it from ... which means energy input just to make the hydrogen you want to use.

Then there's the Storage Problem™.
Hydrogen is the smallest "stuff" in the universe ... meaning is can permeate through ALMOST EVERYTHING made of other elements/molecules ... so it "leaks" out of storage REALLY EASILY.

there's the further issue that molecular hydrogen is below earth's minimum molecular weight which it can gravitationally retain. It rises up to the solar shock and gets blown away with the solar wind. That's largely why any pockets of hydrogen venting are of limited risk.. and are rare.

This does, however, make hydrogen fuel cells a touch safer than lithium batteries in that the fire goes up, rather than staying in the storage medium, in earth atmosphere. If it doesn't have the stoichiometric range of concentration to explode, you can escape the flaming wreck because the flames will be shooting up. Meanwhile, lithium batteries are largely self-oxidizing and will strip oxygen from water to burn... (see What's Going On With Shipping's discussion of the burning motor carriers a couple months back).

From an infrastructural standpoint, it's safer to have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the roads than the Lithium Hydroxide (LiOH) cells so common now.

Pierce a hydrogen storage cell, it usually leaks out up to the penetration, and unless above 500°C, simply finds its way upward.
Pierce a typical lithium cell, it self-ignites and self-oxidizes, and produces hazmat smoke.

It's not all about the energy efficiency.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Pierce a hydrogen storage cell, it usually leaks out up to the penetration, and unless above 500°C, simply finds its way upward.

If you've got a nice stable medium to store the hydrogen in (such as a metal) then the penetration won't yield much in the way of Bad Stuff™ when penetrated (such as the "nail test").

If however, you've got a pressure vessel keeping hydrogen gaseous at high pressure ... piercing the storage method might not be flammable (immediately), but it will probably be "propulsively dangerous" the same way that a pierced high pressure tank of any other material would be (think rocket thrust pressure cylinder).

But yes, the 1G surface gravity of Terra is insufficient to retain gaseous hydrogen in the atmosphere long term.

It's not all about the energy efficiency.

True.
In engineering it's the balance of trade offs that determines the optimal choice from a range of options.