Don't Try To Warm Up Your EV Battery With A Toaster

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Nicholas Scipioni

A Danish EV driver faces a hefty fine for negligent actions that led to the destruction of their own car and damage to their own home. On Saturday, in order to combat the below-freezing overnight lows in Stenlille, Denmark—about 40 miles from Copenhagen—and keep their electric car’s battery warm, the homeowner placed a toaster underneath the car and cranked the knob to eleven. Sometimes you have to think through your ideas once or twice before acting on them.

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Danish police confirm nobody was injured in the resulting fire, though the EV was fully consumed by the blaze. The car was parked in a carport attached to the home at the time, and both structures were damaged. Some reports of the incident indicate a neighbor’s home was also damaged.

“The cause of the fire is most likely to be found in the toaster that the owner of the car had placed under the front of his car to keep the battery warm,” police said on Monday.

While many of the detractors of electric vehicles like to point and laugh at every EV that burns down, it’s important to note that car fires are far more prevalent than you think. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, some 117,000 passenger vehicles catch fire every year, almost one every five minutes, and that’s just in the U.S. The data out of Sweden, where EVs are extremely prevalent, seems to indicate that electric cars are actually much less likely to catch on fire than gasoline cars. Of the country’s 3,400 vehicle fires, just 0.4 percent were electric vehicles.

There’s no indication of the make or model of the Danish EV that died by toaster, but statistically speaking it probably wouldn’t have burned down had it not been for the incorrectly used small appliances. While EVs do work better with warm batteries, it just isn’t worth the risk to try warming them with anything other than parking them in a garage. The battery will still function cold, albeit with reduced range.

Most modern EVs have a battery pre-warming function, which will help with range in the cold. The best practice is just to keep the car plugged in on the coldest nights. If your EV has phone app, you can just crank up the heat 30 minutes before you need to leave, and it’ll not only warm itself, but give you a nice cozy interior to walk out to in the morning. That’s a win-win.