Essay by Eric Worrall
Recently released UK government stats suggest Hybrid vehicles are significantly more dangerous to vehicle occupants than gasoline vehicles.
Death rates in hybrids ‘three times higher than petrol cars’ as road safety experts call for inquiry
By GABRIEL MILLARD-CLOTHIER
PUBLISHED: 10:33 AEDT, 28 December 2025 | UPDATED: 19:32 AEDT, 28 December 2025
Road safety experts were calling for an inquiry on Saturday night as it was revealed motorists are three times more likely to die in hybrids than in petrol cars.
A total of 122 people died in hybrid car crashes last year, compared with 777 in accidents involving petrol cars, according to Department for Transport figures analysed by The Mail on Sunday.
But as hybrids are outnumbered by almost 20 to 1 on Britain’s roads by petrol models, that means hybrids are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash.
Experts believe the higher death rates could be explained by hybrids’ combination of petrol engines and batteries and electric motors, which can be harder to control and more prone to fires.
…The cars’ batteries may also be to blame. They can be damaged by the heat of the engine, which burns at extremely hot temperatures, making them more liable to set ablaze.
…Hybrids were found by a leading insurer of company cars, Tusker, to burst into flames at higher rates than others. Among their fleet of 30,000 cars, hybrid vehicles had an almost three times’ higher risk with 3,475 fires per 100,000.
Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15416671/Death-rates-hybrids-three-times-leading-road-safety-experts.html
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If anyone has a link to the original report please post in comments.
It makes sense that hybrids are more dangerous than other vehicle categories. While gasoline fires are probably more likely than a battery vehicle fire, I strongly suspect EV fires are less survivable. That big battery is a mobile thermite bomb.
Mix the higher probability of a gasoline fire and hot engine components with a battery, and I suspect you are combining the worst of both worlds.
Since the report focussed on Britain, it is also possible local conditions in Britain contributed to this risk. Frequent wet weather with lots of loose road salt in winter, poorly maintained roads, a lack of undercover parking, and in winter extreme cycles from freezing cold to hot might all play a part.
I once survived a gasoline vehicle fire, it was nasty, but I had a good minute to escape the vehicle – I had time to pull over, safely get out of the vehicle through the passenger door, and stroll a hundred yards from the vehicle before the fire reached an intensity which would have been life threatening. After the fire was put out by the fire crew, I even managed to recover and salvage my plastic laptop computer. It was scorched and the battery was destroyed, but after a month of drying out it actually booted and survived enough for me to recover my files.
Battery fires are a little more spectacular. From MGUY;
Combine a gasoline fire with a battery fire, and you have a potential recipe for disaster.
And it might not even have to be a fire. Gasoline engine components frequently operate normally at temperatures above the ignition temperature of Lithium batteries, so even say a small leak in the exhaust system might be enough to cause a battery explosion.
There was a brief moment when I considered buying a hybrid. After Covid gasoline prices in Australia shot up, and hybrids started to look attractive. But let’s just say I’m going to defer that purchase decision.
My daughter and her husband have a hybrid car. A few weeks ago someone drove into them, the other car hit theirs by the rear near side passenger door. Although the damage was on the petrol tank side rather than the battery side, I was concerned about battery damage given that the impact was sufficient to turn the car. I am still not convinced that there couldn’t be damage to the batteries that isn’t immediately obvious.
” … so even say a small leak in the exhaust system might be enough to cause a battery explosion.”
Aircraft are subject to periodic inspections — frequency dependent on type of operation but at least once per year — to catch problems before they become deadly, Automobiles — not so much.
Mortality statistics from the UK are not at all influenced by politics or money.
Just as mass and structure of IC vehicles are unaffected by adding lithium batteries, charging, and cooling systems.
Most likely cause is the much greater weight of the hybrid vehicles which have not had suspension, tyres and brakes upgraded sufficiently from their non-hybrid cousins and so are more likely to lose control under difficult conditions.
While I wouldn’t believe anything published in the daily mail there is also some highly selective editing. The same article goes on to say that electric vehicles are the safest of all vehicle types. But an article pointing out that electric cars are safer than petrol cars wouldn’t fit the narrative here or in the daily mail.
The electric car is a 150 year old solution still desperately seeking for a problem.