As for fires, presently not much of an issue bar the immediate issue of a burning car, but presents a problem should the batteries remain as is when there is a time when most cars on the road and large car parks are EV - it would be better if the industry adopted better batteries sooner rather than later rather than count on further income generated when the owners eventually move to a better battery configuration. eg [1]
Toyota has a 6 stroke, sorry I missed that. I follow such engine improvements with interest, but not so much since a 8 stroke was developed and news of it buried. (It was a test bench only engine, and didn't need additional cooling, said to be 225% than standard engine) Sadly I'm unable to find any additional information on it or the Toyota 6 stroke, but then again when I went decided to also look for details on the large 6 strokes that were used for power generation, one such large engine I'm sure was mentioned at length at wikipedia - it too seems to be yet another entry, that's been cleaned up and mention of it dropped. [2]
[1] https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/10/17/lithium-ion-battery-safety/
Yep, people tend to calculate EV emissions all the way from the "child miners of Congo". For ICEs they just grab whatever the manufacturer reports coughVWcough
There's little merit cherry picking and trying to impose a different context to what was meant.
Zero emission solutions doesn't imply zero emissions from the vehicle. Energy is being expended to create movement and as such will likely generate heat or noise even with the most efficient ever propulsion system that a team of the brightest might be able to create with present day technology.
Electric promises to usher in cleaner air in city streets and undoubtedly the fire during an accident issue might one day be solved.
I do actually see some big catches or issues with going electric ... the inevitable gotcha moment when most vehicles have to rely on batteries, I would guess first the battery price steeply increasing to eventually integrating security features into the modern car that at present most of us would find totally unpalatable.
It's sad that it reached a point where govt had to phase out IC car engines, but the car industry never showed much thought about using 6 stroke engines or seriously exploring other means to get as much energy out of the burnt fuel as they could.