Electric car catches fire after head-on collision with pickup truck on Paraná highway

An electric car caught fire and was destroyed after a head-on collision with a pickup truck, this Sunday (9), on a highway in the interior of Paraná. In addition to the damage caused by the strong crash, the condition of the Geely EX2 – a 100% electric hatch – after the impact drew attention. The car, imported from China, was completely consumed by the flames.

According to an investigation by TV Globo via RPC, there were five occupants in EX2: the driver, who died, and four occupants who were seriously injured. The injured passengers would be the driver’s wife and their three young children, aged 2, 9 and 11.

What happened?

According to information from the Federal Highway Police, the electric car was trying to overtake a truck when, while traveling in the opposite direction, it collided head-on with a Chevrolet S10; All vehicles were at high speeds, compatible with the highway. The incident occurred on BR-277, in the municipality of Candói (PR), 330 km from Curitiba.

The damage to the truck was also severe, with the S10 overturning out of life but with no apparent signs of fire in the vehicle, which was carrying three people. All suffered moderate injuries, according to the PRC: the driver (53 years old), his wife (53) and his son (28).

The Geely EX2 in Brazil

The Geely EX2 was launched in Brazil in November last year, with prices starting at R$ 123,800 and reaching R$ 136,800 in the Max version, which was involved in the accident. The competitive price made the EX2 the 3rd best-selling electric car in Brazil last month, behind only BYD rivals.

The units for sale in Brazil are still imported from China. Soon, however, the Geely EX2 will be produced at Renault’s plant in São José dos Pinhais (PR), as a result of the Chinese brand having become the owner of 26.4% of the French brand’s shares in Brazil. The Geely Group also owns relevant brands around the world, such as Volvo and Lotus.

In the EX2 safety package, there are six airbags, stability and traction controls and, in the Max version, autonomous emergency braking and 360° camera. Regarding fires specifically, Geely says that the EX2 has its own battery protection system, reinforced structural architecture and real-time temperature monitoring. The automaker also highlights the use of LFP cells — chemically more stable and less prone to thermal runaway than nickel cells.

So far, the hatch has not yet been subjected to any of the NCAP standard tests, which evaluate, around the world, the safety of cars in different types of collisions. Who has already passed these tests was the EX5 SUV, also sold in Brazil, which obtained the maximum score in all tests.

Do electric cars catch fire more than combustion cars?

So far, preliminary investigations into the accident have not pointed to any correlation between the fire of the Geely EX2 and the fact that it is an electric vehicle. International surveys also indicate that combustion cars catch fire much more often than electric ones.

Australia’s EV FireSafe, funded by the country’s Department of Defence, estimates a fire risk of around 0.0012% for electric, compared with about 0.1% for petrol and diesel models. Analyses based on data from the NTSB (the US safety agency) point in the same direction, with about 25 fires per 100,000 electric cars against approximately 1,530 per 100,000 combustion cars. In Sweden and Poland, official bodies have reached similar proportions.

The picture is more nuanced, however, when looking only at fires after serious collisions: in NTSB data, fatal collisions with gasoline cars resulted in fire in 3.17% of cases (644 of 20,315) and, in hybrids, in 2.21% (12 of 543). For electric cars, however, the sample is too small (about 41 fatal collisions cataloged) to allow a reliable statistical comparison, experts warn.

The possible consensus is that when an electric car catches fire after an accident, the fight tends to be more difficult: the flames reach higher temperatures, require much more water and there is a risk of re-ignition hours or days later.