It seems that the past few years have witnessed most major car manufacturers issued at least one recall due to fire hazard. It sound like we always hear about cars on fire. So I looked up and the data I found says that’s not the case.
As it turned out, a lot of the things that created the feeling that everything was on fire all the time seemed to be constant news about recall from automakers on car fire risk: a quarter of a million Subaru Ascents This1.4 million BMWs there200,000 yen Ford SUVs. The recall keeps repeating. Hyundai/Kia has the greatest fire risk recovery. Data from Car Safety Center shows that since 2015, Korean automakers have issued more than 30 recalls related to engine fires since 2015. Spanning over 20 different vehicle models from 2006-2021, the fall This recall affected 8.4 million vehicles.
But the actual fire? Still in decline, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
In fact, the association data showed that car fires in 2018 were 60% lower than in 1980.
Fewer than 200,000 such fires have been reported annually over the past decade. In 2018, there were an estimated 181,500 vehicle fires on highways, killing 490 people; 1,300 people were injured; and $1.4 billion in direct property damage
A decade ago in 2008, the annual number of car fires was 207,000. That’s a drop of more than 25,000.
So what can we take from all of this? Automakers still have a lot of work to do — ideally, the fires will stop. But even though there are millions of vehicles affected by the recalls, the drop in the number of vehicle fires means the recalls are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do: get people to get their cars repaired before one. Terrible accidents can happen.
