> more worried about the fact that lithium-ion is very flammable

As is standard fuel used in combustion engines (which you know) so how does the argument of flammability hold stronger here?

Ford Pinto blew up due to tank puncture during an accident.

Metal fires (class D) are much harder to fight than petroleum fires (class B). They can burn way hotter, reignite after seemingly going out, and of course react to water to produce hydrogen.

Current fire fighter directives for putting out BEVs is either dump a loader bucket of sand on it (which most don't have yet), or drag it some place safe and let it burn out.

Also gasoline just sits there until ignited. Lithium battery packs can have various failure modes which send them into thermal runaway. Chevy Bolt EVs are being recalled en masse and owners told not to charge overnight or in a garage, least it go off unattended.

I'm very pro EV but lithium is spicy.

I'm also very pro EV. Working in self-driving and hybrids/EVs driving around in prototype vehicles I often found the on-board GPS jammed. I just found it unnerving to drive around in a vehicle emitting such strong EMF even on-board devices go haywire. That made me think.

As the sibling post said, lithium fires are a completely different class and beast than a petroleum fire.

Material science improvements won’t overcome the fundamental fact that the third atomic element on the periodic table just really wants to light things on fire.

I'd argue those issues are very well researched and material science fixed these.