Critics Say EVs Are A Fire Hazard. Here’s What The Latest Data Shows

• Fully Electric Vehicles (EV)Electric vehicle fires have long been a controversial topic.
• The high-voltage battery is usually the source of the controversy, but the data is clear.
• EVs don’t catch fire more often than combustion-powered cars.

Electric cars are not the fire-prone hazards your uncle might have said they are during that heated Thanksgiving dinner. 

New data from Poland’s State Fire Service, quoted by the New Mobility Association (PSNM), shows EVs are on par with combustion cars when it comes to vehicle fires. The latest EV fire safety report looked at all the vehicle fires that occurred in Poland in the first half of the year, and as raw numbers go, EVs accounted for less than half a percent of the total.

Meanwhile, 98.4% of all vehicles that caught fire in that country were combustion-powered. In other words, out of the 4,712 fires reported from January through June, 4,636 were pure combustion cars, 23 were EVs, and 54 were hybrids or plug-in hybrids.

That said, it’s worth noting that Poland’s EV market share was 8% at the end of July, so it’s only fair to look at the fires per 1,000 vehicles registered metric. In this respect, internal combustion vehicles are tied with EVs, with a rate of 0.23 fires per 1,000 registered vehicles. Hybrids and plug-in hybrids are even lower, with a 0.04 reported fires per 1,000 vehicles.

From 2020 to 2025, a total of 51,142 vehicle fires were reported–50,833 (99.39%) were ICE vehicles, 222 (0.43%) were hybrids and plug-in hybrids, and 87 (0.17%) were EVs.

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Digging deeper into the data reveals that when EVs catch fire, the high-voltage battery isn’t necessarily the one to blame. Poland’s State Fire Service said that the main reason for an electric vehicle fire was a malfunction, followed by fire that spread from another source, and accidents. In half of the EV fires recorded in Poland, a battery fire occurred.

The data coming from Poland aligns with what we’ve seen from other countries. In 2022, Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency (the MSB) cited 23 fires out of a total of 611,000 EVs in service, whereas 3,400 fires occurred on the country’s fleet of 4.4 million fuel-burning cars. That leads to just 0.004% EV fires and 0.08% combustion vehicle fires.

All this being said, there is one very real and scary aspect of EV fires. When the high-voltage battery ignites, it takes a lot of effort to put out the fire. Most automakers recommend completely submerging the vehicle for hours on end to make sure the risk of thermal runaway is dealt with, but not all fire departments have the necessary equipment to do that.