In brief 

• A test in Auckland’s Victoria Park tunnel regarding EV fires was not representative of real-life scenarios.
• An American study showed that EVs have a higher fire risk compared to ICE vehicles, particularly due to battery pack issues.
• OIA documents suggest a lack of thorough safety assessment in New Zealand’s green energy transition, possibly driven by political ideology.

Click for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Victoria Park tunnel test

In June last year, emergency services and transport planners ran their first test of an EV fire in Auckland’s Victoria Park tunnel. At least, that’s how they pitched it. Video footage by Waka Kotahi showed a car parked in the tunnel with no thermal battery fire and no smoke, being drenched by the tunnel’s sprinkler system and fire hoses.

Photos show fire crew with no breathing apparatus draping a fire blanket over the car, something that would be near impossible with flame jets fizzing out the sides and toxic gases capable of burning the skin.

The tame Auckland EV “test” contrasts sharply with a February 2023 fire in the US state of Michigan, where a Ford F-150 EV spontaneously combusted on a dealer’s lot and took out vehicles parked either side:

“The responding fire officers seemed to have been shocked at the intensity of the fire, based on some of the comments caught on the video:

“We’re not putting this f—er out. Look at it,” said one responding officer during the February F-150 Lightning fire. First responders can be heard on video expressing concern about how much water is needed to put out EV fires and whether a special foam would be required. They also questioned the viability and safety of electric vehicles.

“They have to put like a whole f—ing lake on it to put them out,” the same officer said during the Feb. 4 event.”

Precisely that scenario is what scared NZTA Waka Kotahi in an email dated July 3 last year, although their solution was to pump the whole ocean on the fire:

“Presumably, ferries have or could develop “infinite” and high flow rate water supply fire-fighting capability, drawing water direct from the sea. Perhaps at the moment they use limited capacity on-board water tanks? which could be a system weakness to look out for. Perhaps at the moment ferries could have EVs dispersed on their decks to lower the risk of spread from one vehicle to the next. In time though, at say 30% EV fleet this would be impractical. 

“Then you end up with large numbers of EVs tightly packed together. In any case, the fact that all EV batteries are effectively in waterproof and fire-proof containment boxes at the bottom of a vehicle means that firefighting is going to remain a real challenge with current battery technology and firefighting techniques.”

Unfortunately, pumping large amounts of water onto ships can cause them to flounder or worse.

The official mythology built up around EV technology and parroted by the media and Green political lobbyists is that EV’s are not a fire risk. That belief is based on an American study last year that crudely estimated fire risk based on fires per 100,000 vehicles sold. What that study DIDN’T control for was age of fleet: EVs and hybrids have only been sold in bulk recently, so their fleet is much newer and shouldn’t be suffering maintenance issues yet.

American study suggests EV fires double those of ICE vehicles

Despite that, if we adopt the NZ Fire Service definition of EVs and lump EVs and hybrids together, the American study shows EVs are involved in more than twice as many fires (approx. 3500 per 100,000 vehicles) than ICE vehicles (approx. 1500 per 100,000 vehicles). And that’s without taking into account the age of the respective fleets.

Interestingly, whether EV or hybrid, Autocar NZ says the study overwhelmingly proved the risk was in the battery packs:

“Complementing this data, the study made the observation that fire risk recalls issued to internal combustion vehicles often covered a wide variety of mechanical areas — from wiring issues to fuel leaks to component failures. Fire risk recalls for hybrid and electric vehicles, on the other hand, almost always centred around the battery pack.”

NZ’s approach: “shoot first, ask questions later”

These documents released under the Official Information Act strongly suggest the green energy transition in New Zealand was a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach, driven almost entirely by political ideology and without a full safety assessment ever being done (Rationale’s final report is due to be released imminently and will update the briefing points examined back in October 2022).

There is also room to suspect that if the Labour/Greens government did no serious work on EV risks before anchoring their climate policy on them, then a similar “sweep the problem under the rug” approach may have tainted the adoption of wind and solar energy.

Recent reports that one big hail storm can turn a huge solar farm into a pile of broken toxic waste give little comfort that alternative energy and transport are not going to impose massive cost increases on consumers.