Comment by burnt-resistor

You make it sound like battery fires are very common. This just isn't the case. Especially LFP battery fires are pretty rare. They are considered very safe at this point. And the flip side of things burning slowly is that the energy gets released over a long time. People walk away from most EV fires. Annoying for the fire men to deal with but mostly just because it involves a lot of waiting. A petrol car fire is over by the time they get there mostly. Once the petrol tank catches fire, it' not going to take long.

Just remember, the most frequent cause (by far) for fire trucks to get called out is vehicle fires. Whatever you may think of battery safety, if you are fine with being in or around a fuel bomb on wheels and still worry about battery fires, you might be a bit confused about risk assessment. EV fires make the news. Petrol cars on fire generally don't because it's such a common event.

Most modern LFP batteries are actually pretty hard to set fire to. It's something battery makers exploit by subjecting their batteries to all sorts of abuse (shooting them, hammering nails through them, throwing them off buildings, etc.) to demonstrate how safe they are. Whereas a petrol car fires can (and frequently do) result in people dying. Combustible fuel just isn't designed to not combust.

Cars burning is a popular plot point in movies. Probably not that realistic but they burn so pretty. A slowly smoldering Tesla is a lot less exciting. In general, EVs are underused in action movies even though they'd be a lot better performing in a car chase. Petrol cars are much more dramatic. They make noise. They explode. They struggle to start when they need to or when it is cold. Or they run out of fuel and stutter to a halt. Or you set them on fire to dispose of a body. Easy success for a director. Realism in movies is of course not a thing. But exploding Teslas is a bit of a hard sell.