Electric car fires spark panic in South Korea: What happened?

Critics of electric cars take every opportunity to attack this new mode of mobility, even if their arguments are not valid. In South Korea, the situation has reached a critical point with the recent fires involving electric cars. South Koreans are concerned about this situation, but data shows that despite these incidents, battery-powered cars are still statistically safer than gas-powered cars. The latest incident has aroused many doubts among netizens. Some of them choose to sell their vehicles.

In recent months, the Asian country has seen several particularly serious fires, all of which had electric cars as their source. As we have already said, the last one has received particular comments in the country, 800 residents were evicted, 23 were hospitalized, 40 vehicles were destroyed and more than 100 vehicles were damaged.The fire occurred in a residential apartment. While this is the most exaggerated case, it is not the only one experienced recently. In the United States, a Tesla semi-trailer caught fire, causing highway traffic to be suspended for several hours.

Tesla
A Model X fire occurred in South Korea some time ago. It did not seem to be caused by a battery fire, but rather by the owner adjusting the current.

Tesla recommends keeping your vehicle pristine.

Recently, negative views have been spreading… pic.twitter.com/9C5bBbxNFo

— Tsla Chan (@Tslachan) August 16, 2024

There have been a number of fires in recent months.

Statistically, electric cars are not more prone to fire. The data bears this out. Electric cars are three times less likely to catch fire. The problem is not the fire itself, but the fire suppression system. Refer to the case of the Tesla Semi we reviewed earlier, It took US firefighters 13 hours to put out the fire The giant batteries in the trucks developed by Tesla can burn for hours without a quick fire-extinguishing system that firefighters can use.

All they can do is cordon off the area and make sure the fire doesn’t spread to other vehicles or spaces, at least for now. Another additional problem is the gas emissions that are harmful to health. The chemicals in the batteries emit highly polluting substances when they burn. Although, as we insist, these are isolated and unusual cases, South Korean customers worry their electric cars will catch fire Faced with this fear, many of them decided to sell them. Customers also asked battery manufacturers to take additional safety measures.

On this point, the record is clear. Despite having 544,000 electric cars on the road in 2023, South Korea reported just 157 electric car fires between 2019 and 2023. What about its 12.31 million gasoline cars? The country’s national fire agency said it received 10,950 reports of fires involving gasoline-powered vehicles during the same four-year period. The authorities are considering measures such as limiting domestic point load to 90%.and other measures of varying importance.