That estimate is a little bold: we can reject the hypothesis that the probability is smaller than 1/260 with p-value 0.05 (good confidence), but with your threshold of 1/26 the p-value becomes poor.

Note that due to the lack of selection bias (battery fire was already among the top security concerns before the accident), we don't actually need a very stringent p-value, so we can be fairly confident that the probability is greater than 1/260.

But my point was that even with probability 1/260, it's likely to be much higher than for gas cars, or you wouldn't have to dig up 20-year-old articles about "freak accidents".

> But my point was that even with probability 1/260, it's likely to be much higher than for gas cars, or you wouldn't have to dig up 20-year-old articles about "freak accidents".

Gas cars have electrical fires all the time. We don't read about it because it's not news.

Admittedly, those cars tend to be poorly maintained, and not nearly new high end expensive vehicles.

Even new cars are not exempt. Electrical fires are often a total loss even if the car looks ok otherwise because of the way the wiring looms are embedded in the chassis.