The car park

I am not sure why you need 6 hour emergency lighting. If I am in a car park that's on fire, I won't wait 6 hours before evacuating the building.

What the Luton airport car park was lacking was any sprinklers. They assumed that in an airport, the fire engines would get there before the fire took hold. They were wrong. Last I heard, the remaining car park still has no sprinklers.

Most car parks are using a risk assesment structure that is no longer fit for purpose.  More EV's in 2026 than in 2016 and more EV charging points.  

More EV's in 2026 than in 2016

But then correspondingly fewer petrol/diesel cars .. which seem to have been the cause of the vast majority, if not all, of the multi-storey car park fires so far.

   - Andy.

Points to consider

Purchase cost of EV is about 20% more than an ICE thus motor insurance companies will become influential

EV are generally larger than the ICE equivalent from a decade ago

The amount of stored energy in an EV is quite substantial and are harder to extinguish and/or use more water to cool down in the event of fire or thermal run away

100amp main head/cut out may need to be upgraded to say 400 to 600amp dependant on amount of EVSE installed

Sergio Fernandez said:

Purchase cost of EV is about 20% more than an ICE thus motor insurance companies will become influential

I am sure that they already are. What about hybrids?

Sergio Fernandez said:

EV are generally larger than the ICE equivalent from a decade ago

So are ICEs. Surely you have noticed the increase in numbers of 'SUVs'.

Sergio Fernandez said:

The amount of stored energy in an EV is quite substantial

So how much energy is stored in 20 gal of petrol?

thus motor insurance companies will become influential

Won't insurance companies take their usual approach and just pass any extra potential costs onto their customers in the form of increased premiums? It's not like the insurance companies themselves will end up out of pocket.

   - Andy.

The first UK wiring regulations were published on May 11th, 1882.  The primary concern was the prevention of fire risks from early electric lighting installations

Chris Pearson said:

So how much energy is stored in 20 gal of petrol?

The time it takes to put out a petrol car fire varies greatly depending on the fire's size and stage, the materials involved, the amount of fuel, and the firefighting method used. There is no single "average" time, but rather a range of scenarios

Initial Stage Fires: Small fires (e.g., in the engine bay) can sometimes be extinguished in minutes, or even seconds, with a dry powder or foam extinguisher if tackled immediately and correctly (without fully opening the bonnet and providing a rush of Oxygen)


Diesel vs. petrol: Diesel fuel is less volatile and less likely to ignite from a simple spark at normal temperatures compared to petrol; a lit match in a bucket of diesel may even be extinguished. However, once a diesel fire starts, especially if the fuel is atomized (such as from a high-pressure line leak) or preheated, it can burn very hot and be difficult to extinguish


Dealing with a petrol or diesel car fire normally takes around 30 minutes, whereas an EV fire takes around 4 to 5 hours or longer where water has been used, and fire crews usually prefer to let them burn themselves out

Chris Pearson said:

So how much energy is stored in 20 gal of petrol?

The time it takes to put out a petrol car fire varies greatly depending on the fire's size and stage, the materials involved, the amount of fuel, and the firefighting method used. There is no single "average" time, but rather a range of scenarios

Initial Stage Fires: Small fires (e.g., in the engine bay) can sometimes be extinguished in minutes, or even seconds, with a dry powder or foam extinguisher if tackled immediately and correctly (without fully opening the bonnet and providing a rush of Oxygen)


Diesel vs. petrol: Diesel fuel is less volatile and less likely to ignite from a simple spark at normal temperatures compared to petrol; a lit match in a bucket of diesel may even be extinguished. However, once a diesel fire starts, especially if the fuel is atomized (such as from a high-pressure line leak) or preheated, it can burn very hot and be difficult to extinguish


Dealing with a petrol or diesel car fire normally takes around 30 minutes, whereas an EV fire takes around 4 to 5 hours or longer where water has been used, and fire crews usually prefer to let them burn themselves out

Sergio Fernandez said:

Dealing with a petrol or diesel car fire normally takes around 30 minutes, whereas an EV fire takes around 4 to 5 hours or longer where water has been used, and fire crews usually prefer to let them burn themselves out

So given that the ratio of IC car fires to electric car fires is something like 4:1 to 8:1 (depending which data you look at e.g  https://www.portskillsandsafety.co.uk/about/news/statistics-on-vehicle-fires-comparing-electric-and-non-electric-vehicles/ ) it pretty much averages out - moving to EVs results in less fires but burning for longer.

Anyway, in that link you'll see this issue is already being considered (hardly surprising) here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65bb7b5ccc6fd600145dbe1a/covered-car-parks-fire-safety-guidance-for-electric-vehicles.pdf 

That document was released almost 3 years ago.  Regulation and Legislation are certainly way behind the curve, maybe they need to pick the pace up a bit

Also there is the general point that in respect of EVs in the community, we are roughly still at the "unsafe at any speed" level of broad integration of EVs, compared ICE vehicles at the time of Nader's book. In particular the Ford Pinto fuel tank issue was after Nader's book.

For EVs, we also have the problem of the lie of the Fire Triangle approach to fire fighting. Electric arcs, and battery chemical reactions don't follow the fire triangle, so there will be on-going developments in both the power train (fuel to traction) and in the 'fire' fault development & responses.

The recent Heathrow transformer 'fire' also had the fire brigade hanging around while the electric was isolated before the rest of the oxygen triangle fire was addressed.

There is a lot of rubber, plastics and oils based products in the modern car that still burns very well, independent of the state of battery charge. There were some numbers in the LASH FIRE studies for RoRo ship fire issues. The headlines often concentrate on the latest 'worries', rather than old news frequent issues.

As you say, folks are working the issues.