Don’t blame electric vehicles for the Luton airport fire

As soon as the parking lot went up in smoke, social media was aglow with conspiracy theories blaming combustible electric batteries. Sean O’Grady douses the flames of EV hysteria…

A vehicle fire caused the London Luton airport car park to partially collapse (Reuters)

As an enthusiast for the electric vehicle, my first thought on hearing about the terrible fire at Luton airport was: “Oh dear – people will assume it’s an EV.”

My second thought was that the fire, which appeared intense and spread so far among the 1,200 cars there that the car park partially collapsed, would therefore be used as part of this contrived backlash against electric cars, and would provide another excuse to cling on to our fossil fuel addiction.

Rishi Sunak’s decision to push back the ban on new petrol and diesel cars didn’t help with perceptions. Neither has the failure to build a reliable public charging network. Most discrediting of all for battery propulsion is the spate of house fires caused by people trying to put extra power into their e-scooters and botching it.