Should Owners of Multi-Family Residential Buildings Ban EVs in Underground Parking Garages?

Read an article today regarding a major electric vehicle (EV) fire in a Chattanooga apartment building underground garage. (Article here) The late night fire in the garage spread to other nearby vehicles and caused the evacuation of the entire apartment building. EV fires, while rare, are complicated to handle:

"Electric vehicle fires are very difficult to fight. The cause or the reason is, you have what's called thermal runaway, and when the batteries become involved, there's like a chain reaction inside the battery, and it's very difficult to interrupt that chain reaction."

Fortunately no deaths or serious injuries were reported.

A similar event occurred in South Korea in August 2024. Firefighters needed 8 hours to put out the blaze.

We will likely see more of these in the future as EVs become a greater share of the overall motor vehicle population. So, if you are the owner of a multifamily residential building with an underground parking garage or the owner of a single family rental property with an attached garage, do you ban EVs from such spaces?

Property insurers, who are very sensitive to any risk that may trigger an insurance claim, are probably calculating the risks of thermal fires as this is written and in the near future may require such bans as a condition of continuing existing coverage or writing new policies.

I don’t have the answer, but I will be counseling clients to at least consider such a ban to protect tenants and the property.