Motorcycle Fires vs E-Motorcycle Fires: What the Data Actually Shows
- 10FoldMoto
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
If you spend any time around electric motorcycle marketing, you’ve probably seen a statistic repeated over and over:
“Electric vehicles catch fire far less often than gasoline vehicles.”
That statement is technically true—but there’s an important detail that rarely gets explained.
Most of those statistics come from electric car data, not electric motorcycles.
When those numbers get reused to promote e-motorcycles, the comparison becomes much less clear. Motorcycle fire statistics are rarely studied in detail, and e-motorcycle fire statistics are almost nonexistent as a distinct dataset.
So what do we actually know?
Vehicle fire statistics are dominated by car data
Vehicle fire research is mostly conducted using passenger car fleets. Organizations like the National Fire Protection Association and other safety researchers collect large datasets from insurance claims, fire departments, and crash investigations.
Those studies generally show something like:
Vehicle type | Approximate fires per 100,000 vehicles |
Gasoline / diesel cars | ~1,500 |
Electric cars | ~25 |
This is where the commonly cited claim comes from:
Electric cars appear to catch fire far less often than gasoline cars.
The data behind that comparison is fairly solid because passenger cars are:
registered vehicles
tracked in insurance databases
involved in large crash datasets
produced in very high volumes
But once we move outside passenger cars, the data gets thinner.
Motorcycle fire statistics are much less studied
Motorcycle fire statistics exist, but they are rarely separated and studied as deeply as those of passenger cars.
Motorcycles behave differently from cars in several ways that affect fire risk:
exposed fuel systems
smaller fuel tanks
Higher crash rates per mile
limited structural protection around the engine
Because of these factors, some datasets suggest motorcycles may experience higher fire rates than passenger cars, especially during crash events.
However, global research specifically focused on motorcycle fire rates per vehicle is limited compared to the massive datasets available for cars.
Electric motorcycle fire statistics are even harder to find
When it comes to electric motorcycles, the situation becomes even murkier.
Most lithium battery fire reports are grouped into broader categories such as:
electric vehicles
micromobility devices
Lithium battery incidents
Electric motorcycles rarely appear as their own category.
That means the data often mixes together:
e-bikes
scooters
hoverboards
electric motorcycles
battery packs
From a statistical perspective, these are very different machines, but they are frequently counted together.
Because of that, global fire statistics specifically for electric motorcycles are extremely limited.
The fleet size difference matters
Another reason the statistics are unclear is the size of the vehicle fleets.
Approximate global numbers:
Vehicle type | Estimated vehicles worldwide |
Gasoline motorcycles | ~600 million |
Electric motorcycles / scooters | ~20–30 million |
Gasoline motorcycles still dominate the global motorcycle fleet.
Even if electric motorcycles had a very low fire rate, the total number of gasoline motorcycle fires would likely still be much higher simply because there are far more gasoline motorcycles in use.
Why EV car statistics get reused in e-motorcycle marketing
Because electric motorcycle data is scarce, some companies reference the well-known statistic comparing electric cars to gasoline cars.
Again, that statistic itself isn’t wrong.
Electric cars do appear to catch fire less often than gasoline cars in many datasets.
The problem is that cars and motorcycles are not the same category of vehicle, and the data for motorcycles is not nearly as well studied.
So when the claim becomes something like:
“Electric vehicles catch fire less often than gasoline vehicles, therefore electric motorcycles are safer than gasoline motorcycles.”
The comparison becomes less scientifically grounded.
The dataset simply doesn’t exist yet to support that conclusion with the same confidence we have for passenger cars.
Different failure modes
Another important detail is that gasoline and lithium battery fires behave differently.
Gasoline motorcycle fires typically involve:
fuel leaks after crashes
fuel contacting hot engine components
electrical shorts
Electric motorcycle fires typically involve:
Lithium battery thermal runaway
charging failures
damaged battery packs
Both systems have risks, but the mechanisms are completely different.
The honest conclusion
Right now, the reality is simple:
Passenger car fire statistics are well studied.
Motorcycle fire statistics exist but are less detailed.
Electric motorcycle fire statistics are extremely limited as a distinct dataset.
Because of this, using EV car statistics to represent e-motorcycle safety is an approximation, not a definitive comparison.
The statistic isn’t necessarily wrong—it’s just not specific to motorcycles.
As electric motorcycles become more common and fleets grow, the data will eventually catch up.
Until then, the safest statement we can make is this:
The electric car fire risks are well studied. The electric motorcycle fire risks are still an emerging dataset.
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