Volkswagen ID.3 Bursts into Flames in the Netherlands

In my ~20 years of driving I&#x27;ve seen many ICE vehicles catch fire. The first time I remember driving home late one night, had to pull off the road and wait for firefighters to douse an SUV that had caught fire behind the dash and eventually engulfed the whole car. The owner had pulled their golf clubs out of the trunk and was watching it burn.<p>Anecdotal news articles are not that useful, is there any reports on rates compared between ICE and electric cars?

I wanted to translate the Dutch text under the source Video for my fellow-HN&#x27;ers but Google translate can actually do a pretty decent job! So for your convenience here is the text as translated by Google (and proof read by a native Dutch speaker):<p>----<p>GRONINGEN - An electric car, a Volkswagen ID 3, caught fire at the Helper Brink in Groningen at the end of the morning on Saturday. The driver had just put her child in the car and wanted to get behind the wheel herself. She took the charging plug out of the car for a moment. Then the car started smoking. She quickly got her child out of the car and brought herself to safety. The flames quickly spread from the car and 911 was called. The fire brigade rushed to the rescue but was unable to save the vehicle. The car burned out completely and there was little left of the car that was towed by a recovery company. A car parked next to this car was also damaged by the fire. The cause of the car fire is not yet known, but it is believed to have a technical cause.

Those comparing this to ICE car fire statistics are missing the point. The problem with EV fires is that they&#x27;re often related to charging. And charging is an active process that happens during the most vulnerable time in a home (for about 10 hours while sleeping). This is a legitimate reason for having fear about EVs. ICE cars are completely off during the same time. It was bad enough with the Bolt EV that GM was recommending overnight charging the car outside the home garage. If this fear is not addressed in a strong way by the car manufacturers, it could sink the entire EV movement since overnight charging at home is the foundation of it.

What amazes me is that they put out the fire. I thought that when these batteries catch fire, they can burn for days and it&#x27;s impossible to stop it.

Several years back this happened here in India, with the first mass produced, battery-operated car, the Tata Nano. Many of them caught fire and later for political reasons more than anything else, the entire line became a failure. But now electric vehicles are making a comeback thanks to ever-rising fossil fuel prices.

&quot;A Review of Battery Fires in Electric Vehicles&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;publication&#x2F;338542510_A_Review_of_Battery_Fires_in_Electric_Vehicles" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;publication&#x2F;338542510_A_Review_...</a><p>PDF:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;profile&#x2F;Xinyan-Huang-3&#x2F;publication&#x2F;338542510_A_Review_of_Battery_Fires_in_Electric_Vehicles&#x2F;links&#x2F;5ebdfe5592851c11a867d551&#x2F;A-Review-of-Battery-Fires-in-Electric-Vehicles.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;profile&#x2F;Xinyan-Huang-3&#x2F;publicat...</a>

Imagine this happening in a parking garage packed with EVs.

What&#x27;s the battery chemistry? I assume it uses NMC.

Is Volkswagen poaching Tesla employees?

ID.3 did not spontaneously &#x27;burst&#x27; into flames. Driver reported malfunction (probably a short) after charging.<p>Fire might have started outside of battery, perhaps within charging module that caused battery thermal runaway.

I checked a number of ID.3 in depth reviews. The vehicle looks so anachronistic by today&#x27;s standards on the inside. It&#x27;s best to say is a first gen mass market EV coming out to market in 2021. For example, it has a 12V lead acid battery, and equally anachronistic 12V electric system.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;464773&#x2F;how-0783-update-avoids-id3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;464773&#x2F;how-0783-update-avoids-id3</a>...<p>ID.3 is a botched, very hastily engineered car WV put onto market as a placeholder to have just anything in the EV category before they can engineer something proper.<p>Tesla famously has a lead acid secondary battery too, but we can take that Model S is the first mass market EV.<p>None EVs I&#x27;ve seen in China had a lead acid 12V battery. Even hybrids used lithium pack as the main battery for everything.