Did an electric bus catch fire in Bradford, England, highlighting issues with lithium-ion batteries? No, that's not true: The fire started on a diesel bus, an email from the transport operator that owns the vehicle and a search of the U.K. government's vehicle tax records confirmed.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 13, 2023, with a text overlay (translated from Bosnian to English by Lead Stories staff) that read:
Bright present and future of 'green' energy 😁 An electric bus caught fire in Bradford, England. The thermal problem occurs when the lithium battery is overcharged. Lithium-ion batteries can burn for hours or even days.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Nov 1 21:11:30 2023 UTC)
The video shows a double-decker bus on fire in Bradford City Centre on October 9, 2023.
Local newspaper Telegraph and Argus ran a live blog about the fire that contained a picture clearly showing the license plate of the bus as "MD71 EOF."
(Source: Telegraph and Argus screenshot taken on Wed Nov 1 21:25:16 2023 UTC)
Searching the license plate in the U.K. government's vehicle tax checker lists the vehicle's fuel type as "DIESEL." If the bus were an electric bus then the fuel type would have been listed as "ELECTRICITY."
(Source: gov.uk screenshot taken on Wed Nov 1 21:25:16 2023 UTC)
Lead Stories also emailed Richard Harrison, the regional PR manager for the transport company First Bus, which owns the vehicle. He responded:
I can confirm that the bus involved in the fire in Bradford is not electric, it has a diesel engine, and we do not currently operate electric buses in Bradford.
A tiny proportion of electric buses do go up in flames, according to a 2022 report in EV FireSafe:
Electric buses are rightly gaining popularity on our city streets, supporting better air quality in the places our children live, work & play. Like all vehicle fuel types, they do catch fire; our research has found at least 18 verifiable e-bus high voltage battery fires globally since 2010, in a stock of over 110,000 vehicles.
