Can Fires in New Energy Electric Vehicles be Fundamentally Prevented?

From March to April 2025, two electric vehicle fire incidents occurred in succession at a well-known car company, which made the safety of electric vehicles a focus of people's attention.
In fact, since Sony commercialized lithium-ion batteries in 1991, this technology has been developed for more than 30 years. However, a cruel fact is that lithium-ion battery fire accidents have never disappeared, whether it is consumer electronics or electric vehicles. When lithium-ion batteries have dominated the new energy era, can the problem of car fires be eliminated?

Over the past 30 years, lithium-ion batteries have significantly reduced the probability of spontaneous combustion through technological innovation. However, the laws of physics dictate that absolute safety is impossible. The global production of more than 10 million new energy vehicles per year means that the number of battery cells installed in cars has reached billions each year, and there will be several, dozens or even hundreds of cars that have failures and may then spontaneously combust.
Even if car companies reduce their own defect rates to the limit, the risk of fire from external lithium battery equipment (such as charging piles and other vehicles) still poses a threat.
It is worth noting that fire is not a "patent" of electric vehicles. The latest data from the Fire Department shows that the spontaneous combustion rate of gasoline vehicles in 2023 is 0.58 per 10,000. Judging from this data, neither traditional gasoline vehicles nor new energy electric vehicles are absolutely safe.

In addition to spontaneous combustion, the potential threat posed by vehicle accidents may be even higher. Vehicles are high-density energy carriers. Whether it is 53 liters of gasoline in a fuel vehicle (containing about 1.749 billion joules of energy) or a 100kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack in an electric vehicle (containing about 360 million joules of energy), the uncontrolled release of energy under severe impact may cause a fire. The only difference between the two is the trigger mechanism.

Technological progress can continue to improve the safety of electric vehicles, but the chemical characteristics of batteries and the diverse environments in which cars are used mean that fires may still occur. However, we do not need to be pessimistic about the development prospects of electric vehicles. The development and application of solid-state batteries are expected to further improve the safety of electric vehicles. In addition, the continuous optimization of automobile safety design will also add a line of defense to the safety of electric vehicles.