A series of headline-grabbing car fires in South Korea are driving distrust of electric vehicles (EVs), in what local media have dubbed "EV-phobia."

South Korean officials met last week to discuss vehicle safety, and called on all car manufacturers to increase transparency and name their battery suppliers.

On August 1, a Mercedes-Benz EV caught fire in the underground parking lot of an apartment complex in the city of Incheon. It took firefighters more than eight hours to extinguish the blaze. Twenty-three people required hospital treatment, around 140 vehicles were damaged, and 1,600 homes were affected by electricity and water outages for a week.

In separate incident several days later, a Kia EV6 burned out in a parking tower in South Chungcheong Province, with the blaze lasting more than 90 minutes before it could be brought under control.

The cause of both fires is believed to have been the vehicles' batteries.

According to South Korea's National Fire Agency, there were 72 EV-related fires in 2023, up from 24 in 2021. Of the 130 incidents reported in the last three years, 68 vehicles caught fire while their engines were running, 36 while parked and 26 as they were being charged.

Much of the public........

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