It's been a busy seventy-two hours on the lithium-ion battery front, with some of that action, sadly, being boomtastic in Beantown.
Sunday started off pretty quietly in the Greater Boston area suburb of Winthrop, MA. By late afternoon, people in one quiet neighborhood were getting dinner ready and probably planning what to wear to work the next day.
Right up to where the electric vehicle (EV) parked in the driveway between the two houses, just like. exploded.
Thank GOD no one was outside.
An electric vehicle exploded in a driveway in Winthrop, Massachusetts, sparking a massive fire that burned two homes Sunday.
The vehicle, parked between the two houses on River Road, caught fire around 4:30 p.m., drawing a number of firefighters to the scene, including from the surrounding cities of Chelsea, Revere and Boston.
The people inside miraculously all got out, including one very pregnant young woman who was in early labor.
BOTH structures ignited simultaneously and so ferociously that firefighters from several neighboring towns had to be called in to contain the vehicle blaze and try to save the houses. Volunteers also streamed in to help.
...Winthrop fire officials received calls around 4:30 a.m. reporting the fire. What makes this incident particularly notable is the speed and intensity with which it spread. The electric vehicle was positioned between the two structures, and according to fire officials, it ignited both buildings simultaneously.
That kind of simultaneous involvement of multiple structures is not typical of a conventional gasoline-fueled vehicle fire, and it underscores a challenge that fire departments across the country are actively working to address.
The fire was serious enough that multiple surrounding towns had to send mutual aid to assist Winthrop firefighters in battling the battery-involved blaze. A number of off-duty Winthrop firefighters also stepped in voluntarily to help. By the time the fire was extinguished, investigators determined both homes were complete total losses. Four families were displaced, left without a place to return to.
But tragically, all for naught.
Four families have nowhere to go. These were multigenerational homes. On the right-hand side, the young family was living on the first floor of the home where the young mother-to-be had grown up. Her dad lived upstairs.
The one bright spot for the moment is the safe delivery of a baby.
A woman gave birth just hours after a fire tore through her home and a second home in Winthrop Sunday, leaving four families without a place to live.
Winthrop Fire responded to calls reporting a fire at a home on River Road at approximately 4:30 p.m. Crews said it quickly spread from one home to another, forcing four families to evacuate. Multiple fire crews from other towns were called in to help fight the fire, which officials said required thousands of gallons of water to bring under control.
Fire officials said two people, including Chiara Keenan, who was in labor, were taken to the hospital. Chiara and her husband Sean Keenan said their baby girl Giannina Grace Keenan was born at Winchester Hospital Monday morning, and both she and Chiara are doing well.
Chiara’s father Maurizio Marcoccio lives on the second floor of the house, above his daughter and her husband.
...“Our windows just completely melted and burned inside of our house…in my room I have so much memories made. I don’t know what it looks like in there, but I know it’s definitely bad,” she said. “I’m very, very scared and not only just for me, but for my family and everyone else who lives in these two buildings.”
...and irony alert.
Stuff you can't repeat... 🧐
— Rich P....🇺🇲 🇮🇹 (@pavadore_rich) June 8, 2026
So the electric car blows up in Winthrop, while there is a "NO GAS" protest happening in downtown Boston.
I'll take gas thank you..https://t.co/WICq6YoH6z
But that wasn't the only excitement that a Boston area fire department had in the past couple of days that was Li-Ion battery related.
This next story should be a note to self for drivers who have noticed the plethora of battery-powered electric scooters, dirt bikes, and mini motorcycles buzzing around the roads, with teenage drivers often operating them like they were killer bees.
Many times, it seems these kids have never encountered a speed or traffic sign they're bothered to obey, and none of them are old enough for such trifles as driver's licenses or insurance.
A recent senseless and tragic case in Orange County, CA, with a repeat offender and a parent who ignored warnings from law enforcement, horrifically illustrates the hazards associated with brain-dead teenagers and these incredibly agile electric zoom-zooms.
They are not toys.
An Orange County mother faces an involuntary manslaughter charge in the death of an 81-year-old man who died weeks after her son allegedly struck him with an electric motorcycle.
Ed Ashman, 81, died Thursday, two weeks after a 14-year-old boy doing wheelies on an e-motorcycle near a high school hit him, causing critical injuries, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.
Ashman, a Vietnam veteran and captain with the U.S. Marine Corps, had been walking home from his job as a substitute teacher at the school.
The boy’s mother, Tommi Jo Mejer, 50, of Aliso Viejo, was arrested days after the accident and charged with child endangerment, accessory after the fact, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and providing false information to a peace officer.
After Ashman died, prosecutors added an involuntary manslaughter charge. She faces up to seven years and eight months in prison if convicted on all counts, prosecutors said.
Orange County sheriff’s deputies had previously warned Mejer that she could end up being charged criminally if she allowed her son to ride an electronic motorcycle. The devices require a motorcycle license to use, and riders must also be 16 or older. The boy’s electric motorcycle was a 2025 Surron Ultra Bee, advertised by Surron as capable of reaching a top speed of 56 mph.
This Boston incident on Monday is still under investigation, so I have no idea who was at fault, but it most definitely adds yet another deadly hazard to the e-Bike list of cautions.
NOTE TO E-BIKE RIDERS: That thing gets dinked?
GET THE HELL AWAY FROM IT FAST
A car and an electric dirt bike collided in Bedford Monday afternoon, sending the bike that a teenager was riding up in flames, according to Bedford Fire officials.
Bedford police and Fire responded to Great Road just before 3 p.m. for a report of the crash. Bedford Fire Chief James Bailey said the dirt bike was traveling eastbound on Great Road, and the car was traveling westbound and taking a left onto Elm Street.
The Bedford Fire Department said a 16-year-old was riding the bike at the time of the crash, but he was able to get off before the bike’s battery sparked. The teenager was taken to the hospital to be treated for cuts and bruises.
A man who works at a deli across the street said she saw smoke outside his window.
“It was just like, you know, flames coming out of this way and that way, sparks flying and it was- it was like fireworks,” said Steven Silva, who works at Ken’s New York Deli. “It just all of a sudden exploded and just started sparking everywhere. It was kind of crazy.”
The massive fire left burn marks and melted asphalt on the roadway. The Bedford fire chief said crews were able to put out the blaze fairly quickly.
FIRST ON 7: Electric dirt bike catches fire after crash in Bedfordhttps://t.co/Yu4YWiBzYt
— 7News Boston WHDH (@7News) June 9, 2026
Lucky kiddo all around. Cuts and bruises were all he had from both the crash and scrambling off the bike before it blew.
There's also been some interesting news for the 'Yes, but EVs are still safer than internal combustion engines' (ICE) crowd. This is a prime example here. This fellow has been trolling all over any EV fire Xweets, dropping this 'statistic' to discount the dangers inherent in the Li-Ion batteries.
Ignorant comment right here, shows the brainwashing has done its job. BYD battery tech is incredibly safe and no, they do not burst in flames often at all.
— James Wood 武杰士 (@commiepommie) June 8, 2026
Here is some hard data as of mid-2026:
Roughly 25 fires per 100,000 for EVs versus 1,530 fires per 100,000 for ICE vehicles,…
Now, there has been some serious water from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) being doused on the figures that pro-EV group is always quoting. NIST are the 'measurements' guy for the government.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that advances measurement science, standards, and technology to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness
Their latest publication is the release of a multi-resource data analysis on lithium-ion batteries with quite a provocative headline:
Understanding the Risk of Lithium-Ion Battery Fires
And their abstract should give everyone pause.
It turns out that the risk has been substantially underestimated because the data comprising the statistics has been gleaned almost exclusively from news report headlines alone.
Lithium ion battery (LIB) fires are a growing problem that extends across the supply chain, including mining, production, warehousing, shipping, and waste disposal, as well as the consumer side. But data on such fires is fragmented and mostly incomplete. Many are secondary data sources, and for the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission data sets identification of LIB fires is difficult. Some information about LIB fires was estimated from the data sets including typical time of day, time of year, room of house, relative severity, and time trend. Multiple independent data sources make it possible to estimate numbers on some types of fires by identifying the number of such fires that appear in both data sets using the Capture-Recapture method. There have been an estimated 5718 (95 %CI: 2866 – 10 846) electric vehicle and plugin hybrid fires, and an estimated 198 000 (95 %CI: 84 000 – 465 000) LIB fires in structures since 2011. Plugin electric vehicle fires are still a small percentage of the total number of car fires, but are growing at the rate of about 45 % (± 11.3 %) per year, which likely parallels the increase in the number of plugin electric vehicles on the road. Consumer LIB fires appear to be growing at a rate of 10 % (CI: 7.1 – 13.0) per year. The findings indicate a substantial underestimation in current reporting.
If you have six minutes to spare, Pat at Stache has a terrific video just out to walk you through the data.
So this is quite a revelation - a maddening one at that, which makes you again wonder if it was intentional or not. The gaps in the actual data were so egregiously favorable to the green lobby, either by benign neglect or purposefully, that the cynic in me starts grinding teeth almost reflexively at something like this.
It's been such a busy month or two that I haven't had much of a chance to get back to these climate-cult sorts of stories, and when I took a look?
BOOMITY
I guess it was meant to be. The unicorn was with me.
Beege ADDS: Food for thought here on a recent trend I spotted and didn't have time to post about.
Gas prices WILL come down.
Eric Flickinger reached his breaking point this spring while filling up his Ram 1500 pickup with diesel that cost $7.39 a gallon. When the pump clicked off, it read exactly $200.As if that weren’t painful enough, when he hopped back in his truck and started it up, the needle on his gas gauge still didn’t hit full. Turns out, his bank only pre-authorizes a maximum of $200 at a gas pump. Topping off his 33-gallon tank would have required nearly $50 more.
“I was like, what the hell?” said Flickinger, 47, a mechanical engineer who lives outside Seattle. “It pushed me to really think, ‘OK, what can I do to resolve this?’ Because I don’t see prices going down any time soon.”
Flickinger is one of the growing number of Americans finding refuge from soaring fuel prices in a used-car market that’s awash in affordable EVs that automakers struggled to sell at higher prices when they were new. Close to 40% of used battery-powered cars currently on dealer lots are priced below $25,000, according to researcher Cox Automotive, roughly half what the average new car sells for in the US.
Pre-owned EVs are now available in more shapes and sizes than could be found just a few years ago. And more than a million are set to hit the used car lot by late next year, often with years of coverage remaining on their original factory warranty, assuaging concerns about the longevity of EV batteries that have held back some first-time EV shoppers.
Used EV sales jumped 17% in the US through the first four months of the year. That defied an almost 27% plunge in sales of new EVs and a 7% slide in overall new-vehicle deliveries.
Car owners shocked by $200 fillups are embracing used EVs https://t.co/OKEZSPWliN
— O.C. Register (@ocregister) June 8, 2026
Yeesh. USED?
CAVEAT EMPTOR
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
Help us continue exposing Democrats' plans to lead America down a dangerous path. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member