Owners of the Volvo EX30 Ultra electric vehicle (EV) in Singapore have been advised by the Swedish automaker not to charge their vehicles above 70 per cent due to a fire risk linked to a battery defect.
There are 143 Volvo EX30 Ultra EV owners in Singapore. There have been no reported incidents of fire in Singapore so far.
The company did not announce a physical recall of the EVs.
Volvo’s distributor in Singapore Wearnes Automotive is currently sending notification letters to affected customers. Owners can also contact their service consultants or call the Volvo Service Centre on 6473-1488 for assistance.
Globally, 0.02 per cent or 7 units out of a total of 33,777 EVs are affected.
A spokesperson for Wearnes Automotive said battery overheating is rare when charged to a high level, which could lead to fire in a worst-case scenario.
Volvo also confirmed battery overheating is rare and said owners will be alerted to a “HV-Battery overheating” in their EVs.
Only the 200kW version is affected.
Volvo said only some vehicles from the two series MY24 and MY25 are affected. MY24 and MY25 refer to the versions of the EVs rather than their production periods or sale dates.
The automotive company has also provided notifications to car owners in Britain, Australia and the U.S.
Britain has the most Volvo EX30 Ultra EV owners at 10,440 units out of the three countries.
EVs Less Likely to Catch Fire than Petrol-Power Vehicles
EVs are significantly less prone to fire than petrol-powered cars but China has some of the highest number of fires compared with other countries.
“International data shows that petrol vehicles are between five and 20 times more likely to experience a fire per 100,000 vehicles,” EV Council CEO Julie Delvecchio told the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy.
“We are experiencing a range of myths when it comes to electric vehicles,” she said.
A March 2025 report by Fire and Rescue NSW revealed that EV fire rates ranged from three to 25 incidents per 100,000 registrations across the Australian state and other overseas jurisdictions in 2021-23.
In China, the fire rate for EVs was 20 per 100,000 registrations.
In contrast, the fire rates for internal combustion vehicles ranged from 15.8 to 58.2 per 100,000 registrations globally.
In China, the fire rate for combustion vehicles was also around 20 per 100,000 registrations.
South Korea recorded a lower fire rate than China, with about 13 EV fires per 100,000 registrations, compared with 16 per 100,000 for internal combustion vehicles.
European countries such as Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and England reported a much lower ratio of EV fires to conventional vehicle fires.
EV Fires Increase With Higher Uptake
The report suggests that potential for fires is likely to accelerate as EVs increase.
“When we consider that catastrophic battery cell failures are estimated to occur at the rate of one in 10–40 million cells, depending on the quality, and that an average EV battery has between 3,000 and 9,000 cells, the potential for fires increases with the number of EVs in use and is likely to accelerate in proportion to uptake,” it said.
Regarding the high number of fires in China, the report said it was related to the sheer number of EVs produced by the country.
China’s BYD is the global leader in EV sales with nearly 3.8 million units sold in the first 11-month period of last year, according to CleanTechnica.
This represents 2.6 times the sales of its main rival, Tesla, which sold more than 1.4 million units for the same period.
