Hybrid car death rates ‘three times higher than petrol’

[Kamaji]

Hybrid car death rates ‘three times higher than petrol’

Story by Timothy Sigsworth
December 28, 2025

Motorists are three times more likely to die in hybrid cars than petrol cars, analysis suggests.

Department for Transport (DfT) figures show that 122 people died in collisions involving hybrid vehicles and 777 in petrol car crashes last year.

It means hybrids were three times more likely to be involved in fatal crashes because petrol vehicles outnumber them by more than 20 to one. Experts said hybrids were “more complex” than petrol or diesel-fuelled cars.

Nicholas Lyes, of IAM RoadSmart, a road safety charity, said: “Plug-in hybrids are often heavier and more complex vehicles owing to the fact they run on both a traditional combustion engine and a battery.”

Last year, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency found that hybrid vehicles faced the highest fire risk, with 3,475 conflagrations per 100,000 vehicles.

This was compared with 1,530 fires per 100,000 for petrol or diesel cars and 25 per 100,000 for electric vehicles.

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Source:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/hybrid-car-death-rates-three-times-higher-than-petrol/ar-AA1Tayyo

[Sighlass]

Weight + speed = more dangerous.

[rustynail]

They are too powerful.  No one needs a car with that much power.

[Elderberry]

Are Hybrid Vehicles Death Traps?

Powerline

In terms of the laws of physics and economics, hybrid vehicles make much more sense than pure battery-powered cars. And unlike EVs, they have found a viable market niche. But data from the U.K. suggest that hybrids are unusually dangerous. From the London Times: “Fatal crash risk ‘three times higher’ in hybrid cars than petrol.”

    Motorists in hybrid cars are substantially more likely to die in road collisions than those in conventional petrol vehicles, according to statistics from the Department for Transport.
    ***
    Overall, the data shows that there was one death for every 8,000 hybrid cars on the roads last year compared with one death for every 20,000 diesel vehicles, and one death for every 25,000 petrol engines.

EVs were safer than hybrids:

    The data suggests fully electric vehicles have the lowest fatality rate at one death for every 55,000 of these cars on the road.

That is probably because EVs are disproportionately driven around town and not on the highway, due to limited range.

More: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/12/are-hybrid-vehicles-death-traps.php