Most electric-car safety lists reprint a crash-test star rating and stop. That misses the risk specific to these cars: the high-voltage pack. This ranking uses our own composite of thermal management, cell chemistry, crash rating and the battery-related recall record — and the formula is published in full so you can disagree with the weighting.
| Rank# | Car | Battery safety score | Euro NCAP overall rating | Battery or high-voltage recalls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BYD Seal AWD Excellence BYD | 10 | 5/5 | — |
| 2 | Tesla Model 3 RWD Tesla | 10 | 5/5 | — |
| 3 | Tesla Model Y RWD Tesla | 10 | 5/5 | — |
| 4 | Toyota bZ4X AWD 73.1 kWh Toyota | 9 | 5/5 | 0 |
| 5 | Honda Prologue FWD Honda | 8.7 | — | 0 |
| 6 | Acura ZDX RWD Acura | 7.9 | — | 1 |
| 7 | Chevrolet Blazer EV FWD Chevrolet | 7.9 | — | 1 |
| 8 | Chevrolet Equinox EV FWD Chevrolet | 7.9 | — | 1 |
| 9 | Subaru Solterra AWD Subaru | 7.9 | — | 1 |
| 10 | Volvo EX30 Single Motor Extended Range Volvo | 7.8 | 5/5 | 2 |
| 11 | Ford Mustang Mach-E Standard Range RWD Ford | 7.5 | — | 5 |
| 12 | Nissan Ariya e-4ORCE 87 kWh Nissan | 7.2 | 5/5 | 3 |
| 13 | Chevrolet Silverado EV Max Range Chevrolet | 7.1 | — | 2 |
| 14 | Rivian R1T Dual Motor, Large pack Rivian | 7.1 | — | 2 |
| 15 | Kia EV6 84 kWh RWD Kia | 6.6 | 5/5 | 4 |
| 16 | Ford Mustang Mach-E Extended Range RWD Ford | 6.5 | — | 5 |
| 17 | Hyundai Ioniq 5 84 kWh RWD Hyundai | 6.5 | 5/5 | 10 |
| 18 | Hyundai Ioniq 6 Long Range RWD Hyundai | 6.5 | 5/5 | 5 |
| 19 | Kia EV9 99.8 kWh AWD Kia | 6.5 | — | 6 |
| 20 | Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD Tesla | 6.5 | 5/5 | 5 |
Ranked from the 20 cars in our database that have a sourced figure for this. A car with no published figure is left out rather than ranked as a zero. Figures are US units; every model page carries the metric equivalent and the source.Figures are metric; every model page carries the imperial equivalent and the source.
This is our score, not an authority’s
The battery safety score is the one number on this entire site that we compute rather than source. It is a composite, the inputs are all individually credited on each car’s page, and the formula lives at methodology. It is not a regulator’s rating and does not pretend to be.
Euro NCAP and NHTSA ratings sit in the columns beside it, unmodified, so you can ignore our composite entirely and read the official results if you prefer. We would rather show both than merge them into something unaccountable.
Why recall counts are hard to read
The recall column counts battery, electrical and powertrain campaigns registered with NHTSA over the last four model years. It deliberately excludes everything else — a door-latch recall is a real recall but it is not what a battery safety ranking is about. The full campaign list, including which recalls actually need a workshop visit and which are fixed over the air, is a separate piece.
Even so, the number needs care. A manufacturer that identifies problems and recalls promptly looks worse than one that does not, and a company selling more cars in more configurations accumulates more campaigns. A high count is not automatically a warning and a zero is not automatically reassurance — read the campaigns, which are linked from each car’s page, rather than the total.
What is missing, and why it is blank
Several cars in our database have no NHTSA overall star rating. That is not an omission on our part: NHTSA lists those vehicles but has not crash-tested them. A blank means untested, not unsafe, and we will not substitute a related model’s result to fill the column.
Frequently asked questions
Are electric cars more likely to catch fire?
The available data does not support that, and several insurance and fire-service datasets point the other way per vehicle on the road. What is different is the failure mode: a battery fire is harder to extinguish and can reignite, which is why thermal management and cell chemistry carry weight in our score.
Does cell chemistry affect safety?
Yes, measurably. LFP enters thermal runaway at a substantially higher temperature than nickel-based chemistries — the figures and their sources are on the LFP and NMC reference pages.
Should I trust your score over Euro NCAP?
No. Euro NCAP performs physical crash tests; we perform arithmetic on published specifications. Our score exists to surface the battery-specific dimension the star ratings do not cover, and it is meant to be read alongside them, not instead of them.