[ma70]

That's an interesting point, and one that came immediately to mind when I first saw the P2 battery location. One would imagine some sort of failsafe strong zone around the battery box could be implemented, although not sure how effective it would be as it's so close to the rear crossmember & surely the crumple zone would be compromised in this case too?

Having said that, some of the salvage rebuild channels I watch on Youtube have shown a fair few nasty impacts where the battery has been crushed/broken on various cars & it hasn't resulted in a fire. I think when the battery gets smashed it tends to leak all it's electrolyte fairly quickly and the plates within become less capable of producing power/heat even if they're mushed together somewhat.

I think technically yes, an electrical fire *could* result from a rear impact to a P2 car but the chances probably are not significantly higher than a similar impact to any other car with different battery locations. Certainly interested to hear other's opinions and/or experiences around crushed batteries though.