Car Fires By Vehicle Type

January 15, 2022

By NZB3

I’m not especially interested in the national debate between conventional engines vs. electric. This picture (left) came up though and a couple of mistakes occurred. I made the mistake of making a throw-away statement I never thought anyone would respond to. Then someone else made the mistake of responding to it. So, waste not want not, it’s now an NZB3 post. In particular something becomes a post because social media is likely to redact or delete or block or ban content like this rather than let it form a record. Publishing our own sites is the only solution to that…

This graphic is doing the rounds, published as a blow for Electric Vehicles in their battle for legitimacy in car sales politics. The conventional (petrol) car industry/lobby wants the public to think EVs are unsafe and the EV lobby must combat that story. From that fight comes this picture and the premise that ‘per sales’ is a sound metric for thinking about cars catching fire. I don’t see how it can be.

EV cars are new cars. But when we count the fires in regular cars we don’t just count the newly sold ones but the entire car stock. Many cars on our roads are not new and some are vintage. But if a car old enough to vote catches fire it will still be counted as a car fire against the non-ev population.

Not to mention the dubious math, as others have pointed out elsewhere online.

1529.9/100,000 cars are catching fire, says the chart. Rounds to 1.5299/100 which is more than 3 fires for every 200 petrol cars sold. Per year?
Really?

When I look at an Auckland motorway and the hundreds of cars passing by (or stationary..) I don’t see 3 on fire for every 200. Where are these fires? Gisborne?

Better a better metric is required than ‘per sales’ but even taking that at face value it’s impossible to credit.

Imagine being told to accept that 3 in every 200 houses were on fire at any given time.

Or imagine 3 people in every 200 exploded like Lemmings in that old computer game.

Or suppose 22 minutes per day of the week the entire sky turned into the album cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s last album.

I’m not opposed to statistics but does that ratio sound right to you?

Who am I to argue with the government or their sponsored projects (eg TESLA?) Answer: Usually first in line!

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