Are EV Fires Stories Being Covered Up?
By Paul Homewood
On Boxing Day, we passed this house on our way up to the common where we take the dogs. We go there most days, so were shocked to see this fire damage (photos taken today).On Boxing Day, there was a totally burnt out car on the drive, and also a gas van outside, presumably checking the mains were safe. The last time we went past was, I believe, Saturday, so the fire must have happened between then and Tuesday.
We could not identify the burnt out car at the time, as we did not stop. But there is often a Tesla parked on the driveway.
The fire obviously has all the classic trappings of an EV fire. Note how the right side of the house is hardly affected. The garage must have been subjected to extreme heat, because it is hopelessly buckled out of shape.
This is not why I am making this post however.
For some reason, there seems to be no record or news at all of this locally. The South Yorkshire Fire Service keep a daily log of all incidents they have been called to, even down to wheelie bin fires. Yet they have no record at all of this fire. I have requested any information they have, but they have so far not responded.
The local newspaper, the Sheffield Star, also appears to have ignored the story, and there is no trace of the news on Google.
Is there some policy afoot to cover up stories of EV fires? It seems far fetched, but I can think of no other explanation.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Probably the fire escaped from a lab in Wuhan and so to mention it is to surrender to conspiracy theorists.
Do Teslas tend to correlate with solar panels?
Their owners do!
Now imagine an EV car fire onboard a ferry with 1000+ people crossing the Bay of Biscay…
Don’t alarm me. I use that route!!
But a couple of ships have been lost already. So diff if not imposs to extinguish the EV batt fire!
This fear is a ferry industry concern, not a scare story.
The ferries could tow a small barge to transport EV’s. In the event of a fire they just cast off and remotely scupper it…
They need to separate the people from the battery cars same as they do for trucks on The Shuttle and on a train shuttle that I went on in Austria. No doubt it will be more expensive but what is Net Zero about if not impoverishing the people for no benefit whatsoever.
Guidance MGN 653 (M) Amendment 1 electric vehicles onboard passenger roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ferries. Published 7 August 2023
“There are currently no requirements from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) specific to the carriage of electric vehicles on passenger or cargo ro-ro vessels. This guidance is provided in advance of any potential future regulation which may be developed at the IMO, which the UK would be engaged with.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mgn-653-m-amendment-1-electric-vehicles-onboard-passenger-roll-onroll-off-ro-ro-ferries/mgn-653-m-amendment-1-electric-vehicles-onboard-passenger-roll-onroll-off-ro-ro-ferries–2
The Titanic is still the worst maritime disaster in peacetime, maybe the useless, low IQ, Nut Zero Tories will be the root cause of the one to beat it.
@foxbarn My post was only to make you aware that there is no IMO regulation specific to EVs on ferries etc. However, the preparation of guidance shows how authorities share your concerns, and the guidance note is quite informative in points it raises as well as mitigating steps.
Guidance is softer than regulation and enforcement, which means the industry and government is presently adopting a more market-based approach. Compliance and standards are left in the hands of operators, their insurers and their customers.
I regularly travel using an overnight ro-ro ferry, and take the time to check what steps the operator is taking regarding EVs. I have noticed how purely BEVs are not mingled with other vehicles these days, although hybrids still are.
Personally, I don’t see a BEV fire on a modern ro-ro ferry at a level of risk to compare with the Titanic. Ro-ro ferries have segregated and isolated vehicle decks. The Freemantle Highway and Felicity Ace suggest vehicle fires (and BEV fires, if they were a factor) are relatively slow-moving events, leaving plenty of time for evacuation. OK, that’s not a good scenario, but I don’t see it as an immediate threat to the life of passengers.
None of this is to defend those “low IQ, Nut Zero Tories” you refer to. I would only add the Labour Party, Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid Cymru and Scottish Nationalists.
I regularly use the Channel Tunnel. They do not appear to make any segregation at all and simply load as per the queue in front of them. I personally find that “uncomfortable”. The last time on I found I was following a Tesla toward the loading area in Calais so double backed around to be clear of it. Unfortunately as I re-joined the queue and was at a point of no return, another Tesla pulled up behind me! I was not happy.
Regarding an unstoppable EV fire on a ferry being a ‘slow moving event’, I wonder how long it would take to effect a substantial rescue effort to attend a fire onboard a ferry crossing the Bay of Biscay in 30/40 knot winds and 30/40 foot waves (sometimes worse) and how large numbers of passengers would be transferred? The first thing is to get the burning end of the vessel pointing downwind and move the passengers upwind. That would create all sorts of problems.
We have had an LPG car for a few decades. Had a great trip at the outset of ownership all the way to Rome and back. Every station had pumps. Here not so much, especially now.
Originally it was going to be EuroStar, but that was a no. Worked out as we took a ferry from much closer home to Roscoff.
Subsequently hired an RV and no issue taking it in the tunnel with an LPG cylinder on board. A few laptops in various storage cupboards too. No scooters.
Funny old world.
Ray – I’ll be using the ferry service again soon, and will have a nosey around to see what’s happening with the BEVs. The car decks are open before departure.
The overnight ferry sorts vehicles before bringing them on-board as different decks are not suited to all vehicles. The Channel Tunnel crossing might fall under para 1.8 of the Guidance (linked above) where no particular changes are suggested.
Sections 2, 3 and 5 of the Guidance are well worth reading, covering BEV positioning, detection of faults and fires, and guidance on damaged BEVs. The insurance industry loves statements of Good Industry Practice to define limitations of liability, and I’d expect this Guidance note will be quite influential in ro-ro ferry operating practice. If the insurance industry refuses insurance for anything identified in this kind of document (carriage of damaged BEVs could be an example), it would be a brave operator who decides to take the risk.
foxbarn – as a regular customer on these crossings, I’m happy enough to take the risks. I might lose my car if there is a serious fire in the car decks, but I feel happy enough to trust the design and operator competence. If I thought there were life-threatening risks, it would be easy enough to travel by air.
The IMO is a UN body, like the IPCC, so will be reluctant to promote negatives concerning EVs.
I wrote this a month ago.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/electric-cars-on-ferries-a-nightmare-waiting-to-happen/
Probably Cameron-Clegg’s “nudge unit” are suppressing the news. Will the local fire service chief get an honour in recognition.
My council recently consulted on a housing specification and it included reference to batteries for solar panel back up and that theses could be installed indoors. I drew attention to this but doubt if any changes were made. Time to check.
” The local newspaper, the Sheffield Star, also appears to have ignored the story … ”
The Star is generally OK for local news, but the “Sheffield Forum” is the font of all local knowledge and comment 😉
“Are EV Fires Stories Being Covered Up?” The answer is probably yes – I wouldn’t be at all surpirised. After all, the HSE has shown no interest in Li-ion battery risk and fires and that must be under government instruction. Similarly with wind turbine failures, accidents and injuries. The information on these events is being hidden. Similarly with accidents and deaths at anaerobic digesters – it is hard to find the data. I suspect it is the same with all “green” technologies. The risks and dangers are being kept hidden form the public. If the facts werre widely known, Net Zero would be dead in the water.
Classic gaslighting!
My daughter works as an underwriter in the insurance industry and she told me that a fire charging an EV at home is now excluded, from home insurance, it has to be charged at least 15 metres away from the building, that is a long way. I would presume that the EV car insurance would uphold a a claim. but some insurance brokers are avoiding EVs and premiums have increased.
If EVs prove to be expensive to insure, basically because the high risk of fire, then they are doomed.
Geoff, you wrote this: If EVs prove to be expensive to insure, basically because the high risk of fire, then they are doomed.
No, with trillions in subsidies supporting the transition to green energy, normal common sense, normal economic sense, normal safety sense no longer apply in any normal manner.
But there are not Trillions available to prop up this insanity. Even Red Labour have had to row back on their plan to waste £billions each year from the start on green lunacy as credit to Rachel Plagiarism Reeves for noticing this time Blue Labour will leave the piggy bank empty.
I do not disagree, but once there is a personal cost, rather than a government cost ( wind farms for instance) it brings it home to the individual, insurance companies have really detailed statistics on risk.
Lying by omission yet again.
Media busy discussing Taylor Swift. Nothing to see here.
I know what she looks like but I have no idea what any of her songs sound like nor could I name one. Same goes for Ed Sheeran.
I am old enough to remember Mr Ed.
The Big Thang with Swift in the US is her NFL boyfriend, a star tight end for the Kansas City Chieves.
Generations ago, when an NFL team did something big, the TV cameras would cut to the cheerleaders, showing the celebration. Somebody complained – “How dare you show cheerleaders at an NFL game !?!?” – and they stopped it. Fast forward 40 years, and now when the Chieves do something big, they cut to the owner’s box and show Taylor Swift. 31 other teams are denied that valuable marketing.
Gamecock, whilst I appreciate you could not care less, the plural of Chief is Chiefs. https://www.chiefs.com
I am free to protest it, Ray. There is no reason for ‘chiefs.’
Thiefs or thieves?
There was a burned out wind turbine on Hull’s Sutton Field Industrial Estate. It has now been removed. There are several arrays of turbines in the area, I’ve noticed that often one or two of the turbines aren’t working. Recently I’ve spotted one that seems to have been stationary for several weeks.
Yes, undoubtedly – remember Luton airport car park recently and the mists of denial thrown around it
Are you saying that the parking of diesel engine cars should be banned in car parks?
Absolutely, where there’s smoke there’s no fire!
Only when the diesel engine is attached to a car with a burning lithium battery.
No I think he is referring to the way the news reporting seem engineered 10 year ago I would have expected to have heard a discussion about the vehicle (does the model have a history of fires due to a know fault) & the similarities with the car park fire in Liverpool. How you can tell me the fuel of the car without telling me the make and model is suspicious.
Even if the fire was started by a diesel engine car was that a hybrid with a lithium battery and were there lithium battery vehicles in that car park and did that effect the intensity of that fire as I doubt a lithium battery style fire would have being engineered for when the car park was built. Then could there be a structural design failure fall stop (lets pretend all the vehicles were petrol engine cars and this happened) with these type of multi story car parks which needs investigating.
We have a serious problem at the moment were the meaning of words have being subtly redefined e.g. what a short time ago was call investigative journalism is now unhinged conspiracy theory of the flat earth nature.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/luton-airport-fire-diesel-car-electric-b2429063.html
Very convent to attack people searching for the truth & looking for actual criminal conspiracies & corruption.
Just look at the worse miscarriage of justice in British History the Post Office IT scandal.
Any car with a 12V electrical system is vulnerable to fire. Especially if after market accessories have been fitted.
All vehicles have a 12V system, that makes EVs vulnerable to battery fires and low voltage fires. Whichever causes the initial fire the battery is a problem more problematic than diesel
You have the evidence it was a diesel? How?
It’s compulsory for motor vehicles using public roads to have insurance. Therefore records must exist relating to EVs being written off by fire. The information is out there and cannot be suppressed indefinitely.
I would be interested in the ratio of battery car and van fires in relation to the number registered. The EVangelists as the MacMaster calls them are very keen to point out total number of ICE fires is higher but given the huge number on the road not surprised. And since you can’t put the fire out the battery vehicles are scrap every time.
Also ICE cars 30-40 years old are still being used daily.
Apart from Prius are there many 10+ year old cars with a lithium battery on the roads.
Older hybrid cars did not have lithium batteries. Some had battery explosions that did not start fires.
That’s a non-sequitur. The claims are between the owner and the provider.
Give them a chance. It’s the New Year holiday. But if there is no record by Wednesday, give them hell!
Ask a few doors down. If non-answers, ask how much they were paid.
Then go 6 or 8 or 10 doors away, and ask those folks.
I’ll guess the supplier had to turn the power off. Another source
of info.
Curious that the fire service records were incomplete. I smell a rat.
Would there be a record, in the unlikely event that the householder dealt with the fire themselves.
I doubt that they could have done and anyway would not the Fire Service be needed to investigate for insurance purposes.
We never really got to the bottom of the Luton airport car-park fire nor the vehicle fire in Liverpool City Centre in November …defo hiding something
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/live-updates-mini-van-bursts-28187066
If you check official fire report stats, there is no category for fire started by vehicles proximity. The nearest category is Other!, with no further breakdown. Perhaps they have yet to start collecting car fires, & then they will expand to EV Vs ICE? Adding a new category can take ages to be approved & tested.
It’s just what they predicted from global warming!
“Sorry, sir. We cannot process your insurance claim for fire damage. There is no record of there having been a fire at that address. Please correct the address on your claim.”
The authorities ban things of lesser danger than large lithium batteries being recharged in an uncontrolled environment but….there’s a very large blind eye cast when it to do with the Green drive.
Exactly. This is the absurd hypocrisy. We have a vast array of regulations regarding fire risks covering everything from pillow cases to gas cookers, but EVs are not to be disturbed with such things.
crazy dangerous:
Yep…
https://youtube.com/shorts/IZu8SSq6iaY?si=fW2fqMtAXBEi3pfx
Lithium is crazy dangerous:
https: //youtu.be/yGDkiUAwxRs
Meanwhile over at the national propaganda channel, more heat pump BS is being broadcast.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67511954
Just consider this line ” Today’s gas combi boilers are typically designed for flow temperatures of around 50-60C.” Then think about all those TV adds telling you to turn your combi boiler flow temperature DOWN to 60°C. In reality combi’s flow can exceed 80°C so why the author’s DISINFORMATION? Well obviously he is quite deliberately implying a false equivalence for the heat pumps he has been corrupted into promoting/lying about.
p.s. Why is it journalists and online articles cannot find symbols? This is a degree symbol ” ° ” . If I can find it why can’t they?
The last three boilers I was involved with (two of mine and one of my mothers) warned to run at least at 60 degrees for hot water because of Legionella.
The 60°C level is for stored hot water i.e. in hot water tanks. The author here is deliberately confusing the direct hot water supply to taps with the central heating flow temperature.
degree symbol
I either do a copy/paste or from my keyboard use the “alt” method,
that — without spaces — is: Alt-key 0 1 7 6
“If I can find it why can’t they?”
Lazy. And the editors let them get away with it.
Perry White was the last good editor.
The media and government organisations at every level refuse to run stories that they don’t like. The involvement of emergency services is not surprising. During Covid I was clearing a house near a hospital over a period of weeks. All the ambulances all the time, no matter what, ran with blue lights, despite the very light traffic. Presumably to reinforce the “emergency”.
John Redwood MP is doing a sympathetic blog about EVs today at http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/ it’s a good read
The Conservatives tolerate Redwood because he fools a lot of voters into thinking the Conservative party is in some way ‘conservative’, when it is very clearly far more to the Left of even Blair’s past governments. Nothing Redwood says will ever be implemented, the Far Left WEF Tories are hell bent on Nut Zero.
From Redwood’s blog about someone else’s BEV:
” With the recent cold weather I found that range could drop down to as little as 110 miles.”
Surely there must be an issue with the “range remaining” gauge ? Most ICE “daily driving” cars I’ve driven in the last few years barely move the fuel gauge in the first 100 miles after filling up the tank.
“Tory MP says U.K. government must acknowledge potential FIRE RISKS stemming from electric vehicles and lithium batteries”
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-12-29-tory-mp-uk-government-fire-risks-evs.html
Also in the article:
“Property developers Ballymore has drafted plans to “carefully rejuvenate” the centre of Edgware, a north London suburb, with a new cinema, library, shops and restaurants, along with 3,365 new homes in 25 tower blocks. However, the most controversial aspect of the proposal is the plan to build a “transport hub,” which includes a bus station, with buses being stored and charged overnight at the basement level. The hub will be located under one of the residential towers. Ballymore/TfL plan to charge at least 190 electric buses in an underground garage, potentially endangering 7,000 residents living in high-rise tower blocks above”
If (or more likely, when) that lot goes up I doubt that any government / authority would be able to cover it up…
“…If (or more likely, when) that lot goes up I doubt that any government / authority would be able to cover it up…”
….and subsequently, be unable to apportion blame, as usual…. eg. Grenfell fire.
Sorry Paul, much as I support your site, I don’t think you should be speculating about the cause of a fire with vert little or no evidence. This sort of rather wild speculation is not helpful.
The most recent Tesla fire in the UK was 16/07/2023 recorded as « Parked Tesla explodes » according to the Tesla Fire site:
https://www.tesla-fire.com
If it was a Tesla it will be interesting to see if the incident ever appears there . . .
Solar panels on roof.
Jordan “…I have noticed how purely BEVs are not mingled with other vehicles these days”
Surely, better to mingle EVs rather than have a concentration where fire would very rapidly spread?
Also, how does one release an electronic handbrake on an EV or indeed a modern car, should moving vehicles be required?
You haven’t shown any evidence there was an EV involved. Also, the Fire Service is not going to hide an EV fire. That’s just verging on slander to say that.
These are all the hallmarks of an EV fire. No I can’t prove it. Only the Fire Service can , who have serious questions to answer why they STILL have not included this fire in their Incident List.
I KNOW they know about it, because they had one of their fire engines there last Saturday, presumably doing a safety investigation.
It is not up to me to prove anything. It is up to the Fire Service and other public bodies to explain exactly what went on here, and why all news of it has been suppressed
There was also a gas company van there on Boxing Day to do safety checks. The safety barrier they left on the pavement is still there.
I’m not disputing your supposition, however if a Tesla had been on fire in that garage, the whole house would’ve burned as you can’t actually extinguish an EV fire. And there would also be visible remains of the vehicle itself on the ground.
Also, how is the house buckled? The roof line is completely level and beyond the scorching the brickwork is intact.
The burnt out car was on the drive, not in the garage.
The buckling refers to the garage door.
I’ve FOId the Fire Service for more information, so watch this space!!
You have to bet the car belonged to a prominent green to be able to pull strings to suppress reporting. Perhaps someone at the university?
Well…as my group of aging mountain bikers has switched to ebikes (not cheap ali express knock offs, these are expensive bosch stuff, pedal assist only, no throttle, all legal ie NOT the things deliveroo peeps are buzzing around on) we have found our yearly trips to the Alps curtailed……we cannot take our £600 bosch batteries on a flight. So for some reason the aeroplane guys dont want our lithium on the flights.
Fortunately Le Shuttle do….just means we drive instead of fly.
I keep mine in a garage away from the house. And I dont want an EV….
This one looks like arson on an ICE.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/woodhouse-car-fire-photos-show-vehicle-ablaze-in-sheffield-in-the-early-hours-of-the-morning/ar-AA1lWtnl
Still haven’t found a report of your incident.
Yes, that one has been logged:
https://www.syfire.gov.uk/incidents/incidents-22-26-december-2023/
Looks like a larger, 4/5 bed more expensive house. Probably belongs to a local bigwig. Really funny if it turned out to be the Council lead on Climate Change.