Although the fires related to the Chevrolet Bolt last summer and fall were widely reported, the owners of EVs are actually at the lowest risk of fire, a new study finds.

AutoinsuranceEZ collected data from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and government recall data from recalls.gov and found that there were just 52 EV fires in America in 2021.

By contrast, in the same period 16,051 fires were reported for hybrid vehicles and 199,533 for combustion vehicles. That stands to reason, though, since there are many more gas-powered cars on the road than there are hybrids or EVs.

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Indeed, the rate of fires per 100,000 vehicle sales is 1,529.9 for combustion vehicles, which is less than the 3,474.5 per 100,000 vehicle sales seen by hybrids. Electric vehicles proved to be the least likely to catch fire, as just 25.1 per 100,000 vehicles sold were reported.

Combustion vehicles catch fire for a number of reasons, but the biggest is a collision. According to data from the National Fire Prevention Association, an estimated 560 people died in car fires in 2018, with the majority of these fatal fires caused by collisions.

Electric vehicles and hybrids, on the other hand, tend to catch fire because of their batteries. Although battery fires are dangerous and harder to put out than gas fires, the root of the fire tends to be different. In the case of the Bolt, GM struggled but eventually identified two defects, a “torn anode” and a “folded separator,” in the battery pack.

That may lead you to believe that EVs are flawed in some way, but the occurrence of recalls is so far minimal compared to hybrid and combustion vehicles. The four biggest recalls in 2020 relating to vehicle fires were for gas vehicles and together affected more than a million vehicles.

The Hyundai Kona and Chevrolet Bolt EV had the biggest electric vehicle recalls relating to fires that same year, and amounted to 152,000 vehicles, whereas hybrids’ two biggest recalls amounted to a little over 32,000 vehicles.

Although the risk of a fire in an EV exists, it has perhaps been disproportionately focused on. It is important for automakers to eliminate the risk of fire in their vehicles to the extent that is possible, but, apparently, no form of propulsion is completely safe.