BMW i3 Police Car Catches Fire in Rome, Bad News for the LAPD

Little is known about what lead to the incident apart from the fact that the EV belonged to the Italian police in Rome and that nobody was hurt. There's no information on what exactly caused the fire, but it's worth pointing out at this moment that the i3 was equipped with a range extender, which means it came with a small gasoline engine that would act as a power generator charging the batteries on the go.

In the absence of official data, we only have the images and the video as reference, and it sure looks like the source of the fire lies with the internal combustion engine. Judging by where the fire extinguisher was being applied, it coincides with where the atmospheric engine would sit in the car, together with the fuel tank.

The video stops after just two minutes, and by that time the car was still in a pretty OK shape with the fire seemingly under control (there's more smoke than flames). However, one of the images provided by MC VEICOLISPECIALI (via YouReporter.it) shows a car engulfed in flames, with two other special vehicles (a police Subaru Forester and an ambulance) blocking the road. Judging by the pool of foam on the road, this is taken after the initial attempts at containing the fire, suggesting they might have failed.

While one isolated case is nothing to get worried about, it should put the people at the Los Angeles Police Department on high alert, having just ordered a fleet of 100 of these little EVs after testing the BMW i3 against a Tesla Model S. Only time (and, maybe, the fire department) will tell if that was a smart decision or not.