The fire on August 1^st which appeared to start spontaneously in a Mercedes-Benz EV parked below a residential building, took eight hours to put out, destroying or damaging about 140 cars and forcing some residents to move to shelters, reports Reuters.

The country's vice environment minister is leading the meeting, which is also being attended by the transport and industry ministries and the national fire agency, an official said, with the government due to announce new rules soon.

Transport ministry officials will hold talks with automakers, including Hyundai Motor Group, Mercedes-Benz Korea and Volkswagen Group Korea, to discuss the proposal to disclose battery brands used in EVs, media reports said.

The ministry did not immediately provide a comment on the reports. Hyundai Motor Group, Mercedes-Benz Korea and Volkswagen Group Korea did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Images published in media of dozens of charred cars with only their metal frames remaining in the parking lot fire have fuelled consumer fears about EVs, likely exacerbated because so many people in South Korea live in apartments, often with parking lots below.

Car experts say that EVs burn differently to cars with internal combustion engines, with fires often lasting longer and harder to extinguish as they tend to reignite.

The Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters in a report published in February said 1 399 fires occurred in underground parking lots in South Korea between 2013 and 2022, with 43.7% attributed to vehicles. It said electrical sources accounted for 53% of car fires in underground garages.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported last week that South Korea planned to require EV makers to disclose the brand of batteries in cars.

Automakers currently need to provide certain information about vehicles, such as fuel efficiency, but only limited details on batteries and do not have to name the manufacturers, the newspaper said.

On Saturday, Hyundai Motor Co identified manufacturers of batteries used in their 13 EV models, including three models from its Genesis brand on its website, after receiving many enquiries about EV battery makers.

Hyundai and Genesis EVs use batteries from companies including South Korea's LG Energy Solution (LGES) (373220.KS), as well as China's CATL, the website showed.

Moon Hak-hoon, professor of automotive engineering at Osan University, said simply requiring car companies to provide the make of an EV battery would not prevent fires. But what would be more helpful is to certify the fire hazards of each battery brand, he said.

Park Moon-woo, lead author of a report on the response to EV fires in underground garages, said disclosure would give buyers more choice, but noted that currently there was no definitive data.

* Meanwhile in Australia EV battery fires are far less common than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle fires. According to EV FireSafe, which is funded by the Australian Department of Defence to research EV battery fires, it has (as of April 2024) positively identified 474 high voltage battery fires worldwide, out of an estimated 26 million BEVs on the road according to the IEA’s Global EV Outlook 2023 – just 0.0018 per cent of the global BEV fleet.

According to UK statistics as reported by Commercial Vehicles Contracts (CVC) with the increasing number of electric cars and LCVs on the roads worldwide, there has been some scattered data on the occurrence of fires. (https://commercialvehiclecontracts.co.uk/ev-fire-vs-diesel-and-petrol-statistics/)

Consequently, this has raised concerns about the safety of electric vehicles. However, based on the available data, there is no justification for believing that the risk of fire in an EV is higher than in any other vehicle. In fact, the opposite seems to be true.

According to recent research, the probability of an EV catching a fire is generally less than that of an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle.

According to the directorate for social security and emergency preparedness in Norway, which has the highest proportion of electric car sales globally, there are between four to five times more fires in petrol and diesel cars compared to electric cars.

Furthermore, a study conducted by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency in 2022, determined that petrol and diesel cars and vans were nineteen times more likely to catch fire compared to their electric counterparts.

Tesla, led by Elon Musk and the largest producer of electric cars globally, stated that the number of fires involving Teslas on US roads from 2012 to 2021 was 11 times lower per mile compared to the average for all cars, the majority of which run on petrol or diesel engines.

What does The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have to say? According to an earlier article on Zero Carbon Crage, the IIHS has said that, due to the growing popularity of EVs, they have become inherently safer than fuel-powered vehicles. The IIHS has also stated that their Safety Pick of the Year list has been filling more and more with EVs. (https://charge.co.za/are-electric-vehicles-safer-than-fuel-powered-cars/)

In 2022, EVs scored some of the highest scores in crashworthiness. The IIHS highlighted that the rate of injury is 40% lower for passengers and pedestrian collisions in EVs than it is in fuel-powered vehicles.