Calpe City Hall says goodbye to electric cars after one caught fire while charging: "The next ones will run on gasoline, diesel, hydrogen, or whatever the experts say."

While most public administrations continue to strengthen their commitment to electric mobility, the Calpe City Council (Alicante) has decided to swim against the tide. After eight years of using electric cars assigned to the Mayor's Office, the council has announced that it will not renew the rental contract and will replace these vehicles with fossil or alternative fuel vehicles, depending on the technical specifications.

The announcement was made by Mayor Ana Sala during the last municipal plenary session, in which she justified the measure after one of these vehicles caught fire while being refueled right on Avenida de Ifach, in front of City Hall. "It was a one-off," said the mayor, who added that the new tender will be conducted without technological preference. "If they have to be gasoline, diesel, or whatever, or green hydrogen , the one that's in fashion... I don't know, I don't know, I don't understand. I'll leave that to the experts," she said in statements reported by the newspaper Levante and Cadena Ser .

Images of the fire, circulating on social media, show the intensity of the blaze. According to eyewitnesses, the electric car was plugged into the charging station when it began to spark and smoke. Within minutes, the vehicle was engulfed in flames. Firefighters quickly responded to extinguish the blaze and control the situation, although the cause of the short circuit is still unknown.

Calpe City Council will not renew the rental contract, which ends in November, and leaves the decision on what type of vehicles to acquire in the hands of technicians.

The mayor's decision comes at a time when many public administrations are strengthening their commitment to sustainable mobility . Calpe is no exception, and according to the mayor herself, she has five vehicles with this engine assigned to the mayor's office, which will be replaced by other models whose technology has yet to be defined.

The incident in Calpe coincides with a time of heightened media coverage of fires involving electric vehicles. In early April, a hybrid vehicle caught fire in Alcorcón (Madrid) that ended tragically, with three firefighters dying while trying to control the flames inside the parking lot where the incident occurred. Months ago, an electric car caught fire in a parking lot in Madrid's Plaza Colón .

Images of the incident show the virulence of the flames, which quickly engulfed the car while it was loading.

These events have prompted an immediate response from the management of certain parking lots in the capital. At least two of them have decided to prohibit access to electric vehicles , relying on the right of admission to minimize risks. This measure, although controversial, responds to concerns for the safety of users and workers, given the complexity of extinguishing fires in electric cars, where the batteries can revive even hours after being turned off.

This difficulty has been evident in several fires involving ships loaded with electric vehicles. In January 2023, the cargo ship Fremantle Highway, sailing in the North Sea with nearly 3,000 cars—25 of which were electric— suffered a fire that is believed to have started in one of these vehicles . A similar incident occurred in February 2022 with the freighter Felicity Ace , which was carrying thousands of luxury cars, many of them electric or hybrid, and ended up sinking after burning for several days.

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Xavier Giménez, professor of Environmental Chemistry at the University of Barcelona, ​​explains that "when the electrolyte, which is one of the materials in the battery, begins to burn, it eventually affects all the components and causes even greater damage." He also warns that this component can burn for hours, making it difficult to extinguish completely and explaining why a seemingly controlled fire can flare up again.