You have a complex electrical system that gets constantly temperature cycled in a fairly extreme way, sitting right next to a bunch of flammable material. Not a big surprise that it goes wrong sometimes.

I doubt it's common enough to be a real worry in either type of car, though.

People need to keep statistics in mind when looking at these issues because there are lots of people who are heavily invested in EVs failing. That first tweet in the article is a prime example. They frame a single incident of a fire with a Hyundai EV as negative news for Tesla. You can click through to that account's feed and see they tweet almost nothing but negative comments about Tesla. People like that are actively working to make sure that you see every single isolated incident when something goes wrong with an EV in hopes that it stalls that industry.

And just a disclaimer to the above comment, this incident should definitely still be investigated to make sure there isn't a widespread issue. It is just a reminder that we shouldn't overreact every time a single EV has a problem because odds are we would never even hear about it if the same thing happened to an ICE vehicle.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/jalopnik.com/how-one-suv-fire-d...

Unfortunately, the majority of cases I remember were due to flaws in the electrical system:

https://www.autosafety.org/ford-ignition-switch-fires/

https://www.autosafety.org/category/vehicle_fires/ford_cruis...

https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/ford-recalls-f-15...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/08/07/gm-reca...

In other words, the (relatively small) battery in ICE vehicles provided the initial energy to start those fires, and not the fuel itself. I suppose one could say that a safety advantage of ICE vehicles when parked and off is that even a fuel leak requires a source of ignition to cause a fire (also, diesel is very difficult to actually ignite), whereas with an EV there is always a huge source of electrical energy available and a lot more components which are always supplied with power.

My guess is that once they become as common as ICE, EVs will continue to catch fire at roughly the same rate if not more.

I don't think you can predict from theory which will have higher fire rates. All the fires are due to small flaws in the details, so it's a question of design and manufacturing carefulness.

Does it count as "off" when the car periodically wakes up when parked to do everything from check for updates to warming/cooling the batteries or cabin?

(Not trolling, I can't find the actual answer.)

It's certainly not solely powered by the 12V as it'd be flat within the day.

EV fires will be fewer.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bmw-mystery-fires-abc-news-i...

It's certainly a thing that happens in these systems, sometimes it happens enough to warrant changes and/or recalls if it's systemic. Should there be insufficient protection in EV models that fails to address the safety issues unique to the new components that's something we need to address, just like we address when it happens in traditional cars.

Media over-reporting this is no different than those "look at that expensive supercar on fire" cases imho, the tech is new and gets clicks, slap Tesla in the summary and you get even more clicks. We certainly don't help the issue with discussions that look like programming language wars.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ferrari-fuel-vapor-leak-f...

*Edit: changed to real link from amp version.

I'm moved to share about being very careful when opening the hood (engine compartment cover) of a vehicle that's overheated. I did that once, and there was a flash fire. From oil and grease on the engine. Fortunately I didn't get burned. And closing the hood put out the fire.

But damn, it was a shock.