I’d expect that, but would have assumed it is due to there being more old gas vehicles on the road. Is that data normalized for age of the cars driven?

I assume that my neighbors 30 year old gas guzzler is more likely to catch fire than my 1 year old PHEV for example (or maybe I’m more likely since I have both a lithium battery and a gas tank).

> Putting ten gallons of highly toxic and flammable fuel into a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of view.

And there's another 10-20 gallons of various oils in the engine and transmission. While they aren't nearly as volatile as the gasoline, they're still quite flammable. Really, it's a wonder these things were ever allowed. :)

duskwuff says: >"And there's another 10-20 gallons of various oils in the engine and transmission. While they aren't nearly as volatile as the gasoline, they're still quite flammable"<

1. Off by an order of magnitude: ~4-6 quarts of oil in the motor, about the same for the transmission yielding for a large motor about 2 gallons total.

2. duskwuff says >"they're still quite flammable."< Nonsense. Engine oil is so hard to burn that it is not classified as flammable by OSHA:

https://firefighterinsider.com/is-motor-oil-flammable-you-ma...

Furthermore these oils are encased in heavy metal (the engine block, the transmission block and the differential casing).

Starting batteries (the 6- and 12-volt kind) cause more fires than do engine and/or transmission oils.

To paraphrase Charlton Heston: "I'll give you my gasoline car when you can pry it from my cold, greasy, dead hands."

That fun fact may be true, but ask any firefighter that has had to put out a lithium based car fire how fun that fact is. The lithium based fires require 12-15 times the amount of water to extinguish.

They can also be put out with a blanket apparently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv2L_QYg4oA

Although weirdly enough the video demonstration doesn't seem to be of a battery fire. :facepalm

Why is water being used for either? One's an electricity-rich fire, the other's an oil-rich fire, water's an unwise response to both for different reasons.

> quite literally insane from all practical points of view

Erm. I don't think that's true.