Electric Cars Burn 15x Less Often Than Gas Cars

The next time someone at a barbecue tells you electric cars are fire hazards, you can politely share what Sweden's fire departments actually found. Out of more than a million electric and plug-in hybrid cars on Swedish roads in 2025, only 46 caught fire.

The math tells a different story than the viral videos. That works out to 4.5 fires per 100,000 electric vehicles, compared to 69 fires per 100,000 for gas, diesel, and other traditional cars. Electric vehicles burned at roughly one-fifteenth the rate of everything else on the road.

Sweden's Civil Defence Agency builds these numbers from actual fire department reports filed after every call. It's one of the few national datasets that tracks car fires by what powers them, making it harder to dismiss as guesswork.

Even when researchers adjust for factors that favor electric cars, the gap remains huge. Many traditional car fires are arson, and electric vehicles tend to be newer. But even if you cut the gas car fire rate in half to account for arson, traditional cars still burn seven times more often.

Germany's insurance companies see the same pattern in their claims data. The GDV, representing German insurers, reviewed 13,600 car fires in 2024 and found no evidence that electric cars carry higher fire risk than gas-powered vehicles.

Norway's civil protection agency analyzed four years of data and reached the same conclusion. Petrol and diesel cars caught fire four to five times as often as electric cars when you account for how many of each type are on the road.

Remember the massive Luton Airport parking garage fire in 2023 that grounded flights and needed over 100 firefighters? Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue traced it to a diesel car, not an electric one. The investigation found an electrical fault in the engine bay of a moving vehicle that wasn't any type of hybrid or electric car.

Here's what makes the myth stick: burning electric cars get more attention. A diesel fire in a side street makes the local paper. A battery fire that needs hours of cooling becomes a video that travels across Europe overnight.

The Bright Side

The part about battery fires being harder to handle is real. When lithium batteries ignite, the fire spreads from cell to cell, requires long cooling periods with water, and produces toxic smoke that can be expensive to clean up in underground garages. The difference is how rarely it actually happens.

Interestingly, e-scooters caused more fires in Sweden than electric cars did. Swedish agencies recorded 55 e-scooter fires in 2025 compared to 46 plug-in car fires, with most scooter fires starting while charging indoors.

The lithium battery most worth watching at home isn't the car on your driveway, it's the e-scooter charging in your hallway.