State Farm Insurance takes EV chargers out of its parking garages | Driving

The U.S.-based insurance company, one of the country's largest, said it's pulling the chargers due to risk of fires

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State Farm, the largest auto and home insurance company in the U.S., has removed all electric vehicle (EV) chargers from its parking garages, citing concerns over fire risks. The decision, announced in late October and effective almost immediately after that, affects chargers at the company’s head office in Bloomington, Illinois; and at its hub locations across the country. State Farm does not operate in Canada.

In a message to its employees, the insurance giant said, “While we understand the impact to those who rely on EV charging, it is our top priority to ensure a safe and secure working environment for our employees. Following an Enterprise Risk Assessment and evaluations conducted by local fire departments and workplace protection in each hub and corporate headquarters, fire risks were identified in the parking garages that cannot be mitigated at this time.”

In a report to a local news agency, a State Farm representative confirmed that charging stations “housed within our parking garages will be closing,” and that “plans are in place to explore alternative charging locations outside of parking garages, including the possibility for EV parking.”

In August, some 55 Rivian electric vehicles were damaged by fire as they sat in a parking lot awaiting transport at the automaker’s factory in Normal, Illinois, about 4.8 kilometres (three miles) from Bloomington. There were no injuries and the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Statistically, EVs are less likely to catch fire than those powered by gasoline, but when they do, they tend to burn fiercer and are more difficult to extinguish. According to the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services, it may take up to 150,000 litres (almost 40,000 gallons) of water to put out an EV fire, compared to 1,900 to 3,785 litres (500 to 1,000 gallons) to extinguish a fire in a conventional vehicle. We recently reported on a new material being developed by LG Chem that could help prevent battery fires by inhibiting internal overheating, but so far, it’s just in that development phase.

As with any fire, an EV in flames in a parking garage creates additional hazards for others in the building, including firefighters, as well as the potential for serious damage to the structure itself.

So far, there haven’t been any reports of other insurance companies pulling EV chargers from their facilities. And we’re also wondering if there’s any possibility that, in future, State Farm may start looking at its customers – specifically, those who have installed EV home chargers in their garages – and wonder if the same potential issues it has earmarked at its head office may be on its radar at the consumer level as well as at the corporate one.

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· Professional writer for more than 35 years, appearing in some of the top publications in Canada and the U.S.

· Specialties include new-vehicle reviews, old cars and automotive history, automotive news, and “How It Works” columns that explain vehicle features and technology

· Member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) since 2003; voting member for AJAC Canadian Car of the Year Awards; juror on the Women’s World Car of the Year Awards

Jil McIntosh graduated from East York Collegiate in Toronto, and then continued her education at the School of Hard Knocks. Her early jobs including driving a taxi in Toronto; and warranty administration in a new-vehicle dealership, where she also held information classes for customers, explaining the inner mechanical workings of vehicles and their features.

Jil McIntosh is a freelance writer who has been writing for Driving.ca since 2016, but she’s been a professional writer starting when most cars still had carburetors. At the age of eleven, she had a story published in the defunct Toronto Telegram newspaper, for which she was paid $25; given the short length of the story and the dollar’s buying power at the time, that might have been the relatively best-paid piece she’s ever written.

An old-car enthusiast who owns a 1947 Cadillac and 1949 Studebaker truck, she began her writing career crafting stories for antique-car and hot-rod car club magazines. When the Ontario-based newspaper Old Autos started up in 1987, dedicated to the antique-car hobby, she became a columnist starting with its second issue; the newspaper is still around and she still writes for it. Not long after the Toronto Star launched its Wheels section in 1986 – the first Canadian newspaper to include an auto section – she became one of its regular writers. She started out writing feature stories, and then added “new-vehicle reviewer” to her resume in 1999. She stayed with Wheels, in print and later digital as well, until the publication made a cost-cutting decision to shed its freelance writers. She joined Driving.ca the very next day.

In addition to Driving.ca, she writes for industry-focused publications, including Automotive News Canada and Autosphere. Over the years, her automotive work also appeared in such publications as Cars & Parts, Street Rodder, Canadian Hot Rods, AutoTrader, Sharp, Taxi News, Maclean’s, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes Wheels, Canadian Driver, Sympatico Autos, and Reader’s Digest. Her non-automotive work, covering such topics as travel, food and drink, rural living, fountain pen collecting, and celebrity interviews, has appeared in publications including Harrowsmith, Where New Orleans, Pen World, The Book for Men, Rural Delivery, and Gambit.

2016 AJAC Journalist of the Year; Car Care Canada / CAA Safety Journalism award winner in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013, runner-up in 2021; Pirelli Photography Award 2015; Environmental Journalism Award 2019; Technical Writing Award 2020; Vehicle Testing Review award 2020, runner-up in 2022; Feature Story award winner 2020; inducted into the Street Rodding Hall of Fame in 1994.

Email: [email protected]

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jilmcintosh/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JilMcIntosh

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