This Friday, September 3, the Swiss branch of AXA published a complete study on the dangerousness of electric vehicles, between higher fire risks, too much power and failures of driving aid technologies. Only, the insurer had the good idea to fake a crash test to confirm its positions. The bad buzz was immediate.
While the electric car market is doing particularly well in France and around the world, with a sales record broken in June 2022, EVs still have many prejudices that stick to them. Starting with their supposed greater danger compared to thermal vehicles, more precisely the higher risks of fire because of the batteries.
It must be said that there is no shortage of examples of EV fires, like this Tesla Model Y which turned into a fire in the middle of a Canadian road in May 2022, or even this Model 3 which suddenly caught fire in November 2021.
AXA publishes a questionable study on electric vehicles
In an attempt to disentangle the true from the false, the Swiss branch of AXA published this Friday, September 3 a complete study on the subject called “Electric car accidents: new risks for road safety?”. This report, carried out with 1,200 people, first tends to prove that EV drivers cause 50% more collisions than owners of internal combustion cars.
The fault in particular of overtapping, or unintended acceleration. Due to the high torque offered by the most powerful EV models, drivers can be surprised by sudden strong accelerations when touching the pedal. It is this phenomenon that led to the fatal accident in Paris of a Tesla Model 3 taxi.
To support his point and prove the dangerousness of electric cars, AXA carried out an in-house crash test during which the insurer sacrifices a Tesla Model Y, for the common good of course. Unfortunately, and this is an essential point that has escaped some media, this crash test was bogus from A to Z by AXA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRc0Hw2S80A
A bogus crash test from A to Z
In order to make this accident more impressive, the test car “had no battery and the fire was started remotely” using artifices, as AXA clarified a posteriori in an official apology statement. “In addition, the crash test carried out with a model of the Tesla brand did not cause damage to the underbody of the car likely to trigger a battery fire, contrary to what the recorded images might suggest. recognizes the insurer.
hard to understand why AXA let itself be seduced by such a deceptionespecially since the insurer’s study specifies that the risks of fires on an EV in the event of an accident are not higher to those on a thermal vehicle, quite the contrary. A fact confirmed by other official studies, starting with that of the NHTSA (American agency in charge of road safety), which reveals that EVs have a rate of 25 fires per 100,000 vehiclescompared to 1530 for thermal cars.
“In retrospect, this test intended to illustrate a supposed risk should have been designed differently. We made it clear in our press release that, according to statistics from AXA Switzerland, the. electric cars are no more prone to fire than conventional combustion vehicles”, admits the company. Regarding the assertion that EV drivers cause more accidents, here again the method used invites us to question this result. In effect, AXA does not take into account the category, power or price of the vehicle.