Yeah. They are safer. It might be because they weigh almost as much as an American 3/4 ton pickup truck. Although people who are unlucky enough to be hit by an EV in a typical small car might not agree.

Credit: The Telegraph.

 

Hybrid car death rates ‘three times higher than petrol’

Timothy Sigsworth

Sun, 28 December 2025 at 5:10 pm GMT

2 min read

Motorists are three times more likely to die in hybrid cars than petrol cars, analysis suggests.

``Department for Transport (DfT) figures show that 122 people died in collisions involving hybrid vehicles and 777 in petrol car crashes last year.``

It means hybrids were three times more likely to be involved in fatal crashes because petrol vehicles outnumber them by more than 20 to one. Experts said hybrids were “more complex” than petrol or diesel-fuelled cars.

Nicholas Lyes, of IAM RoadSmart, a road safety charity, said: “Plug-in hybrids are often heavier and more complex vehicles owing to the fact they run on both a traditional combustion engine and a battery.”

Last year, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency found that hybrid vehicles faced the highest fire risk, with 3,475 conflagrations per 100,000 vehicles.

This was compared with 1,530 fires per 100,000 for petrol or diesel cars and 25 per 100,000 for electric vehicles.

Official DfT guidance says that “only fire service personnel with specialist training, using self-contained breathing apparatus, should tackle these types of fires or events”.

It adds: “Battery fires may result in jet-like, directional flames and will release toxic chemicals, which can pose a risk to health. However, a normal vehicle fire could develop quickly into a main battery fire if left long enough; hence, in the event of any EV fire, defer to the fire service.”

The RAC Foundation, a transport research charity, said a “dedicated investigation branch” should be established to analyse the data. Steve Gooding, its director, said: “It’s high time we had a specialist resource to address road safety risk.”

The statistics indicate that Britain’s two million electric vehicles were the least likely to be involved in a fatal incident last year, with just 23 taking place.

Under new plans for road pricing, hybrid vehicles will face a 1.5p per mile charge from 2028, in addition to fuel duty.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles currently account for one in 10 new cars sold, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. So far this year, 208,000 have been bought – a 34 per cent increase on 2024.

Basically the same story has been run in various media recently. It would have been useful if they'd provided a link to the DoT data - I've trawled various Government sites and not found it as yet.

This morning, Vauxhall announced that their focus will return to diesel cars as EV sales have been abysmal. A really sensible decision though I wonder how it will play out when our current looney government make it illegal to sell them? Nice to see a car manufacturer fight back though as they should have done from the start rather than roll over and let the government tickle their belly!

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