EV fires are not your garden-variety car bonfires. They’re searing, toxic infernos that burn like the wrath of a lithium god and refuse to die politely when sprinkled with a bit of water. When something this hot cooks away for hours, it doesn’t just char paint — it eats into the bones of the building. And when structural elements are exposed to extreme heat for extended periods, they don’t exactly grow stronger. They buckle, twist, and fail. We saw this on September 11, when burning jet fuel weakened the core supports of the Twin Towers, leading to their eventual collapse.
Now imagine that inferno not in the open, but in an underground carpark. Above it? A multistory building, all of whose structural columns run dutifully through that very garage into the ground, holding the entire thing upright. One floor cooks, and the rest may follow.
And yet, almost nobody seems to be asking the obvious question: after an EV fire rages beneath a building, is that building still structurally sound? Or are we all just meant to keep parking, shopping, and sleeping above a potential house of cards? What kind of testing is even required to determine the damage? Who pays? Who signs off on “safe”?
I’ve said it for years: electric vehicles should be banned from underground and overground carparks alike. Flat, open spaces only, well away from load-bearing anything. And while we’re at it, no tunnels or bridges either — because the last thing we need is infrastructure collapsing under the noble weight of green virtue signaling.