Do EVs really catch fire more often?
A single burning electric car can go viral within hours. The footage is spectacular, the topic stirs up strong emotions, and the comments quickly turn an isolated incident into a verdict on the entire technology.
“EVs catch fire more often.” “Battery fires can’t be put out.” “Every charge is a risk.”
Claims like these are repeated far more often than hard data. Yet the full statistics for Poland for 2025 do not confirm that fully electric cars catch fire more often than combustion-engine vehicles.
This does not mean battery fires can be taken lightly. If the fire reaches the cells, the incident can be challenging and prolonged, and can carry a risk of reignition. That, however, is a different question from how often fires occur in the first place.
A battery fire can be rare and, at the same time, difficult to bring under control. These two statements do not contradict each other.
That is why we have devoted the first episode of Voltified Energy’s new series “Elektryki bez mitów” (“EVs Without Myths”) to this very topic.
▶ Watch the episode “Czy elektryki naprawdę płoną częściej?” (“Do EVs really catch fire more often?”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYac5alCPQ
Poland 2025: what do the numbers actually show?
Data from the State Fire Service, analysed by F5A New Mobility Research & Consulting for the “Raport Bezpieczeństwa Pożarowego EV” (EV Fire Safety Report), shows that in 2025 Poland recorded 44 fires involving fully electric cars, 105 fires involving hybrid vehicles and 9,515 fires involving combustion-engine cars.
Raw numbers, however, cannot be compared without taking into account the size of each vehicle group. There are far more combustion-engine cars on Polish roads, so a more appropriate benchmark is the number of incidents per a given number of registered cars.
POLAND — FULL DATA FOR 2025
Fully electric cars: 3.62 fires per 10,000 vehicles
Combustion-engine cars: 4.15 fires per 10,000 vehicles
Hybrid cars: 0.82 fires per 10,000 vehicles
In the period analysed, the rate for fully electric cars was about 12.8% lower than the rate for combustion-engine vehicles.
This is not proof that every EV is safer than every combustion-engine car. It is, however, a strong enough basis to conclude that the available data does not support the myth that EVs catch fire more often. Polish New Mobility Association
“Our aim is not to present e-mobility as a flawless technology. We want to separate real hazards from myths and show the numbers in their proper context.”
Gabriel Markut, co-founder and CEO of Voltified Energy
More fires do not always mean greater risk
As the number of EVs on the road grows, the nominal number of incidents may naturally rise as well. Such an increase on its own, however, does not mean that any individual car has become more dangerous.
Data from Denmark illustrates this well.
In 2025, the Danish emergency services recorded 62 fires involving electric and hybrid cars. A year earlier there had been 50, so the number of incidents rose by 24%.
Over the same period, however, the number of registered electric and hybrid cars grew by around 42% — from around 485,000 to almost 693,000.
The fleet therefore grew faster than the number of fires. As a result, the incident rate fell from 1.2 to 1 fire per 10,000 vehicles. For other types of car, the Danish rate was 4 fires per 10,000 vehicles. brs.dk
DENMARK — DATA FOR 2025
Electric and hybrid cars: 1 fire per 10,000 vehicles
Other types of car: 4 fires per 10,000 vehicles
So one could write a headline saying that the number of fires in electrified vehicles has gone up. It would be technically true, but without the information that the number of cars grew even faster, it would lead to the wrong conclusion.
This is one of the best examples of why data always needs context.
What do other European markets show?
The Danish Emergency Management Agency also compared its results with data from Sweden and Norway.
According to that analysis, Sweden recorded 0.45 fires per 10,000 electric and hybrid cars in 2024. For other vehicles, the rate was 7.5.
In Norway in 2025, the figures were 0.55 and 3.9 incidents per 10,000 vehicles respectively.
Data from individual countries cannot, however, be turned directly into a safety ranking. Poland reports fully electric and hybrid cars separately, whereas some foreign statistics combine the two groups. The rules for counting arson, the place where a fire started or fire spreading from another object may also differ.
The Danish agency itself points out that methodological differences limit how far countries can be compared. brs.dk
Despite these limitations, the data points in a similar direction: none of the datasets analysed shows that an electric drivetrain in itself leads to a higher frequency of fires.
An electric car on fire does not mean a battery fire
One of the most common mistakes is to automatically assume that every EV fire starts in the traction battery.
An electric car, just like a combustion-engine one, has a 12 V electrical system, interior trim, plastics, tyres, an air-conditioning system and electronic devices. A fire may start outside the high-voltage system or spread from another car or a building.
In a Danish analysis of incidents from 2018–2021, prior external impact, such as fire spreading from another vehicle, was identified in around half of the cases examined. brs.dk
The information that “an electric car was on fire” therefore does not yet answer the question of whether the battery was the source of the fire.
To be even more useful, statistics should in future clearly distinguish between fires that started in the battery, incidents in which the fire reached the battery secondarily, fires unrelated to the high-voltage system and cases with an undetermined cause.
What actually sits under the floor of an EV?
A traction battery is not one big battery. It is a complex system made up of many individual cells connected into modules, enclosed in a protective housing and working together with control electronics.
The pack also includes cooling or heating systems, sensors, fuses, contactors, high-voltage connections and the battery management system, or BMS.
NHTSA describes a traction battery pack as an assembly of physically connected cells together with the hardware and software that manage them. It also stresses that the high-voltage system should not be serviced without proper training and specialist equipment. NHTSA
Under normal conditions, energy flow and battery temperature are kept under control. The situation can become dangerous if a cell is seriously damaged, punctured, crushed or overheated, or if an internal short circuit occurs.
Thermal runaway: why can a battery burn differently?
Thermal runaway is an uncontrolled, self-sustaining process in which temperature and pressure rise inside a cell.
Damage triggers heat-releasing reactions. The rising temperature accelerates further reactions, which can produce flammable gases. If heat is transferred to neighbouring cells, the process may spread to further parts of the module.
Depending on the design and the type of damage, thermal runaway can be triggered by a serious collision, a punctured cell, an internal defect, an improper repair, flooding, an external fire or prolonged exposure to high temperatures.
This does not mean that all battery damage leads to ignition. Modern packs have numerous structural, electrical and software safeguards designed to detect anomalies and limit the spread of the reaction.
“Thermal runaway explains why a battery fire can be challenging. It does not, however, answer the question of how often such incidents occur. These are two different categories of risk.”
Tomasz Piwowarski, co-founder and CTO of Voltified Energy
Why can reignition occur?
Once the visible flames have been put out, the battery may still contain hot or damaged cells. The pack may also retain some of its electrical energy.
The NTSB calls this “stranded energy” — energy that remains in a damaged battery. It can pose a risk of electric shock and of thermal runaway developing again. ntsb.gov
For this reason, the end of the visible phase of a fire does not always mean the end of all operations. Further cooling, temperature monitoring and observation of the vehicle may be needed, along with proper arrangements for its transport and storage.
This is one of the reasons why fires involving a traction battery can be more operationally demanding.
Is it impossible to put out a battery fire?
This is another sweeping oversimplification.
The fire can be brought under control, but if the reaction involves the cells, simply knocking down the visible flames may not be enough. What matters is effectively lowering the temperature and limiting propagation from one cell to the next.
This may require larger amounts of coolant, longer monitoring and the use of thermal imaging cameras. It does not mean, however, that the emergency services are helpless against such fires.
Polish data shows that firefighters are gaining experience. The average duration of a BEV fire response fell from 4 hours 21 minutes in 2024 to 2 hours 40 minutes in 2025.
That is a reduction in the average response time of 1 hour 41 minutes, or about 39%. psnm.org
A rarer incident may require more specialised action. Specialised action, however, does not mean that the incident itself occurs more often.
What role does the BMS play?
The Battery Management System supervises the operation of the traction pack. Depending on the vehicle’s design, the BMS and the control units it works with analyse, among other things, voltages, temperatures, charging and discharging current, state of charge, differences between sections and logged faults.
When the system detects abnormal conditions, it can limit power, reduce the charging current, stop charging, disconnect the high voltage or warn the driver.
The BMS significantly increases safety, but it cannot undo a physical puncture of a cell, repair a damaged housing or eliminate every possible failure scenario.
It is a layer of protection, not a guarantee that the battery is completely immune.
SOH is not a safety certificate
SOH, or State of Health, describes the condition of a battery relative to a defined initial state. It most often focuses on retained capacity, or the ability to store energy.
A low SOH may mean that the battery delivers a shorter range and has less usable capacity. It does not automatically mean a fire hazard.
On the other hand, a high SOH does not rule out mechanical damage, an insulation problem, fault codes stored in the control units, a local thermal anomaly or an improperly performed repair.
A single SOH percentage is not a complete battery diagnosis and should not be treated as a guarantee of its safety.
At Voltified Energy, we separate three different questions: how much energy the battery can still store, what its current technical condition is, and what that condition means for the car’s further use and value.
Only by combining these perspectives can a more complete picture of the vehicle be built.
What can professional diagnostics offer?
A professional test cannot guarantee that a failure or fire will never occur in the future. It can, however, significantly reduce uncertainty and reveal symptoms that call for further checks.
Depending on the vehicle model and the data made available by its control units, it is possible to analyse, among other things, stored fault codes, voltages, differences between sections, temperatures, insulation parameters, behaviour during charging and discharging, and information reported by the BMS.
A reliable certificate should also clearly state the limitations of the test: which data was read directly from the vehicle, which was calculated and which parameters the model in question does not make available.
This is a far more responsible approach than reducing the entire condition of a battery to a single percentage.
What data do we still need?
Today’s statistics make it possible to assess the overall frequency of fires, but they still do not answer every question.
The market needs data that takes into account vehicle mileage and age, the specific model, collision history, where the fire started, the battery’s state of charge, previous repairs and the actual involvement of the traction pack in the incident.
A distinction is also needed between fires that occur while driving, while parked, while charging and during repairs.
Only by combining the frequency, causes, course and consequences of incidents will a full risk assessment be possible. This is a task for manufacturers, emergency services, repair shops, diagnosticians, appraisers, roadside assistance companies and insurers.
Voltified Energy will develop its own studies and update this analysis as further comparable data becomes available.
What should you do in an emergency?
If smoke is coming from the underbody area, or you notice a strong smell, unusual hissing, a sudden rise in temperature or a warning about a serious high-voltage system fault:
Stop the vehicle in a safe place and switch it off.
Get out of the car together with your passengers.
Move to a safe distance.
Call 112.
Tell the operator that the incident involves an EV or a plug-in hybrid.
Do not touch damaged high-voltage components and do not attempt to repair the battery yourself.
NHTSA warns that physical damage to a battery can lead to the immediate or delayed release of flammable and toxic gases and to a fire developing. NHTSA
So what is the honest answer?
It would be dishonest to claim that electric cars never catch fire.
It is just as dishonest to claim that they catch fire more often simply because they are electric.
The most accurate answer is this:
Electric cars can catch fire, but the available data does not indicate that this happens more often than with combustion-engine vehicles. If, however, the fire reaches the traction battery, the incident may require different procedures, intensive cooling and monitoring for the risk of reignition.
That is the difference between a myth and a rigorous analysis.
Watch the first episode of “Elektryki bez mitów”
In the video, Gabriel Markut and Tomasz Piwowarski explain what Polish and international statistics show, why a single video clip does not describe an entire technology, how the BMS works and what thermal runaway is.
▶ Czy elektryki naprawdę płoną częściej? | Elektryki bez mitów #1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYac5alCPQ
We invite you to watch the video, subscribe to the Voltified Energy channel and tell us in the comments which myth we should look into next.
Voltified Energy methodological note
The Polish rates have been converted from the published values per 1,000 vehicles into values per 10,000 vehicles.
For BEVs: 0.362 × 10 = 3.62.
For combustion-engine cars: 0.415 × 10 = 4.15.
For hybrids: 0.082 × 10 = 0.82.
The relative difference between the Polish rates for BEVs and combustion-engine vehicles was calculated as follows:
(0.415 − 0.362) ÷ 0.415 × 100% = approx. 12.8%
The calculation is not a forecast for any specific car and does not prove a causal relationship. It describes the recorded frequency of incidents over a given period and within a given vehicle population.
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