Electric vehicles are supposed to represent progress, but there is one part of the EV conversation that still makes a lot of people uneasy: battery fires. When a lithium-ion battery goes into thermal runaway, firefighters are suddenly dealing with a completely different kind of disaster. These fires can burn for hours, reignite unexpectedly, and require massive amounts of water to cool down.
Now, a Pennsylvania fire department has become the first in the United States to receive a specialized tool built specifically for fighting EV battery fires, including incidents involving (but not limited to) Tesla vehicles.
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TEAMEX Corp announced that the Shartlesville Community Fire Company No. 1 in Pennsylvania has taken delivery of the EV-Drill LANCE, a device designed to pierce an electric vehicle’s battery pack and inject water directly into the cells. Yes, firefighters are literally drilling into EV batteries now.
That may sound extreme, but it also shows how complicated these fires can become once thermal runaway starts.
Unlike a normal gasoline car fire, spraying water on the outside of a burning EV is not always enough. The EV-Drill LANCE is designed to attack the heat source directly by penetrating the battery enclosure and cooling the affected modules internally. According to TEAMEX, the system works using standard water pressure from existing fire trucks and does not require an external power source.
The company says the tool can be deployed by a single firefighter, which is important during high-stress roadside emergencies where every second matters.
The first department to receive the system serves parts of Interstate 78 in Pennsylvania, an area that sees heavy traffic and increasing EV adoption. That means firefighters there are more likely to encounter electric vehicle incidents than they were just a few years ago.
Tesla fires tend to dominate headlines whenever they happen because videos of burning EVs spread quickly online. To be fair, gas-powered vehicle fires are still more common overall. The difference is that EV battery fires can become much more difficult to fully extinguish once the battery pack enters thermal runaway.
That reality is clearly changing how fire departments prepare for emergencies.
The fact that specialized battery-piercing equipment is now arriving at local fire stations says a lot about where the automotive industry is heading. Automakers continue pushing EV adoption aggressively, but first responders are the ones adapting in real time to the risks associated with giant lithium-ion battery packs.
TEAMEX says it will also demonstrate the EV-Drill LANCE later this month at the NFPA Conference & Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, where firefighters and emergency response professionals will get a closer look at the technology.
Whether tools like this eventually become standard equipment nationwide remains unclear. But if firefighters now need what is essentially a giant drill to stop certain car fires, it is hard to pretend EV battery safety concerns are fully behind us.
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