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Burning EV Batteries Are Delaying LA Wildfire Clean-Up

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(Photo by David Crane/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

As of October 2024, there were over 431,000 Teslas alone in the Los Angeles area. That’s a lot of EVs outfitted with a lot of lithium-ion batteries that have complicated the fight against LA wildfires.

For as much good as electric vehicles can do for our air quality and in our ongoing battle against climate change, they do have one pesky problem that we haven’t quite been able to solve. When those batteries catch fire, they become a raging inferno nearly impossible to put out.

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A Tesla-related car accident back in 2018 is a tragic example of this. The car crashed, bursting into flames and killing everyone inside. It took emergency responders almost 300 gallons of water and foam to extinguish the fire.

After everyone thought the blaze was subdued, responders were loading the Tesla for removal when the battery ignited again, entirely on its own.

The fires are so intense and difficult to combat that a common tactic for battling them is to not battle them at all — just let them burn until there’s nothing left. Governor Gavin Newsom said in an executive order issued last week that the state is “still adapting to newer technologies” like lithium-ion batteries that have added a micro problem to the macro problem of wildfires in the state.

Quickly finding a solution to raging EV fires will be key to the future success of electronic vehicles in California. Scores of EV batteries burning in the LA wildfires are unfortunately happening in the wake of Governor Newsom signing an executive order requiring all vehicles sold in the state to be zero emission by 2035.