cross-posted from : lemmy.zip/post/62209262

The “they catch fire” argument is fucking bonkers anyway. If there’s one thing petrol cars are famous for, it’s being filled with flammable liquids that can and do leak everywhere and combust upon collision. You can ignore them. Same with all the disingenuous cunts who complain about wind turbines “spoiling the view” who ignore the coal and gas power stations that have littered the skyline for over a century.

Ah, Lemmy. You never disappoint with sharing hilariously inaccurate information in comments!

firerover.com/…/how-often-do-ev-batteries-catch-f… ICE vehicles have far more fires. EVs are more intense, but significantly less frequent

Cool source. Ok, I’ll bite. The number of fire deaths in Teslas alone drawfs the number of fatalities in the infamous Pinto. The number is being tracked by volunteers because there’s no data from the NFPA or others that segments by EV vs ICE, but the number of highway vehicle fire deaths has been trending sharply upwards since 2016.

Tesla has sold nearly 8 million cars in total, with 3.5 million cars in 2023-2024 alone. There were 3.1 million Pintos ever produced in its 10 year run. There are 27 fatalities linked to Pinto related fires and 83 related to Tesla fires according to your volunteer run source. The Pinto had a fatality for every 1 in 116,000 vehicles while Tesla, according to your source, has 1 in every 96,000. So the number of Tesla fire related fatalities does not “dwarf” the number of Pinto related fatalities. On top of that, a key difference is most of the Pinto fatalities were due to rear end collisions with no fault of the driver while Tesla’s are much higher performance vehicles getting involved in high energy collisions due to driver (autonomous and human) errors. Here is a list giving a different view of fatal accidents by car model. To quote the article: “Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue,” said Brauer. “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.”