Despite the popular myth that EVs love to spontaneously combust in car accidents, you’re actually a lot more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline-powered car. That said, once an electric goes up in smoke, the flames are far harder to extinguish due to the densely packed, chemical nature of a battery. That can make a bad situation worse as the fire rapidly spreads from one or two damaged cells to the surrounding intact ones. Amid the country’s push for EV safety, however, researchers in China have developed a new insulating material that can prevent “thermal runaway” from spreading, even at temperatures of nearly 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit.
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