Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Car spontaneously combusts on Wightman Road
At around 16:30 this evening a car was burning on Wightman Road by the junction with the western section of Hampden Road. According to a witness at the scene, the driver stopped the car and before they knew what was happening it burst into flames.
The car was still in flames some ten minutes later when I was emerging from Hornsey Station to take the New River Path.
As far as I am aware no one was hurt. Neither the cause of the fire pr the make of car is known.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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It would be nice to know whether it was a battery electric car.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Sutton
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One of many daft conspiracy theories pushed by petroleum interests and Reform nutjobs is that electric cars catch fire. NOT TRUE
google says:- electric vehicles (EVs) are not more likely to catch fire; in fact, they are significantly less likely than conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, with some data suggesting they are as much as 20 times less likely to experience fires per vehicle sold. Concerns about EV fires are often fueled by media focus on rare EV incidents and a lack of context compared to the much more frequent fires in gasoline and diesel vehicles.
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From Autocar, April 2025 - https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/how-much-fire-risk...
"Another study by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency found that EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire than ICE cars.
An additional study by that agency and an American insurer found that just 25 out of 100,000 EVs suffer fire damage.
By comparison, 1530 per 100,000 ICE cars experience fire, and hybrid vehicles suffer a much higher risk of 3475 per 100,000."
Here's a more local BBC News report from last year, with some context, and Essex Fire service saying that an electric vehicle fire is more intense and takes longer to extinguish fully.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66866327
Footnote on battery power: delivery riders are now banned from taking e-bikes on the Elizabeth Line as well as every other part of TfL's network. For a while there was a loophole in the regulations - I flinched whenever I used it and spotted a couple of e-bikes in the last carriage, having seen footage of an e-bike fire on a train and doubting that all of them are properly certified for manufacturing quality.
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Gordon, you're right that they are personally imported from China and have no safety inspection regime at all.
I bought a copy DeWalt power tool battery mail ordered directly from China at half price of the original.
I'd used it for a month when it suddenly exploded, big bang and it flew apart, luckily no injuries, but if it had hit someone there would have been a serious injury.
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I recall that initially the fire at Luton Airport two years ago which destroyed a multi-storey car park and more than 1000 vehicles was blamed on an electric vehicle.
The Fire Service's final report was at pains to say a diesel vehicle, not an electric or hybrid one, was the cause. But mud sticks...
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And it was a diesel car that caught fire on Stanhope Gardens during a Covid lockdown, annihilating the BT OpenReach box that it was parked next to & removing the internet connection of several streets in the Gardens.
See: https://harringayonline.com/forum/topics/car-explosion-and-no-internet
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So was it an EV on this occassion?
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