Battery-Powered Trouble

In considering the ways in which a multimillion-dollar building might be destroyed, a golf cart is probably far down most people’s list of culprits.

But that is a real danger as golf carts powered by lithium-ion batteries become more prevalent on greens across the United States, says Andy Lott, central region president for the Insurance Office of America (IOA), which offers risk management and safety oversight services for club organizations. With golfers returning to the links in force after the COVID-19 pandemic—playing a record 523 million rounds last year, according to the National Golf Federation—it’s worth considering the risk, the brokerage says.

Country clubs and golf courses commonly park their golf carts (and thus their batteries) beneath the clubhouse, though insurance companies prefer they use separate storage or maintenance facilities, says Lott.

“The main thing is the storage of the batteries within or beneath high-value buildings,” he notes. “And what it does is it increases the exposure that the insurance companies are taking on due to the nature of the batteries. If there is a fire that occurs from those batteries, it will expand very quickly and can consume a building very quickly.”

Clubhouses can be worth $20 million to $30 million, Lott says. Rebuilding would not be cheap, adds Peter Small, area senior vice president at broker Risk Placement Services, which also specializes in golf and country club insurance.

“I would say, for example, we look at about $350 to $400 a square foot to rebuild a clubhouse,” which vary in size, Small says. “So…if you look at the 100,000-square-foot building versus a 10,000-square-foot building, you could probably estimate roughly what we’re looking at from a cost perspective.”

The scope of this hazard is unclear, though it is not zero. Lithium-ion batteries, in total, have been connected to more than 25,000 fire events from 2017 to 2022 in the United States alone, Gallagher Re said in a July 2024 report.

The October 2023 destruction of a golf clubhouse near Melbourne, Australia, was linked to charging of lithium-ion batteries used for electric carts, according to local news reports. A June 2023 blaze that started with a golf cart’s lithium-ion batteries destroyed a house in Jacksonville, Florida, television station WJXT reported.

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) “is aware of 15 fires since 2021 involving golf carts due to a battery, while it was charging or plugged in, or due to an electrical issue,” spokesman Thaddeus Harrington says. “Additional golf cart fires were reported, yet they did not mention [battery or electrical] issues, but also did not have enough detail to rule them out.”

It was not immediately known how many of those fires specifically involved lithium-ion batteries or whether structures were damaged or destroyed. Reports do not always come in with high levels of detail, according to Harrington.

Lott says he does not have figures for the number of fires involving lithium-ion battery-powered golf carts at courses, or how many property damage claims might have been filed with insurers following such events. No IOA clients have filed claims of this type with Lott’s team, he adds.

Risk Placement Services (RPS) has also not received any claims from such an incident, Small says. However, he has received two to three submissions in the last 10-15 years from prospective clients that had sustained some adverse impact due to a golf-cart battery. At least one of those events involved a lithium-ion battery and one resulted in the loss of the maintenance building and its contents, though RPS could not confirm whether those were the same incident.

“I don’t think the number of incidents is large, but I don’t have that data to support that,” Small says, adding that “we have not seen it in the program ourselves, and I hope we do not, but the exposure is present.”

The National Golf Foundation (NGF), the trade association for the industry, also said it did not have any data regarding cart fires ignited by lithium-ion batteries.

“Large fires that are newsworthy are usually very infrequent events, so there aren’t a lot of examples to compare,” says Dan Grant, corporate director of safety and loss control services for Sentry Insurance. “Certainly both gas- and battery-operated golf carts pose fire risks, with improper storage and use being common causes in both.”

Other insurance companies that specialize in coverage of golf courses or golf carts declined to comment or did not respond to queries.

Sales of electric carts represent roughly 55% of the market for new fleets, with gas-powered vehicles comprising the remainder, according to NGF editorial director Erik Matuszewski. He could not say what percentage of the electric carts feature lithium-ion batteries.

“Lithium-ion battery will most likely be the leader when it comes to golf carts,” Small says, citing benefits including durability, longevity, and fast charging. “I think I would say that if that’s not already happening, I would certainly see that happen in the future.”

Top manufacturers of golf carts powered by lithium-ion batteries include Yamaha, E-Z-GO, and Club Car (which acquired rival Garia in 2022). Their models start under $10,000 and can approach $20,000.

Six of E-Z-GO’s eight personal vehicle models for 2025 can use lithium-ion batteries; it is the sole battery technology for three models, according to the company website. The three models available for fleet sales can also be manufactured to use lithium-ion batteries.

E-Z-GO says on the website it has placed more than 230,000 lithium-ion-powered carts with Samsung batteries on over 3,750 courses.

Club Car has since 2019 sold lithium-ion-powered versions of its Tempo and Onward models. More than half of the electric golf carts sold today feature lithium-ion batteries, though Club Car does not release detailed sales figures.

Danger, High Voltage?

A quick search on YouTube will demonstrate that golf carts catch fire often enough to be repeatedly caught on video. But a lithium-ion battery fire comes with particular complications.

These batteries are used in products ranging from laptop computers to smartphones to power tools to electric vehicles. Engineering has made them far more stable in the decades since their invention in the 1970s, Sentry Insurance emphasized, while acknowledging the continued risk of fire or explosion.

By early 2018, the CPSC had identified 25,000 distinct cases in the preceding five years of overheating or fire risks in consumer products that used lithium-ion batteries, The Hartford noted in a September 2023 article. Potential causes of ignition encompass excessive exposure to heat, damage to the battery pack, a defect from production, or overcharging the battery, according to The Hartford.

Of particular concern is the threat of thermal runaway, during which a lithium-ion cell—per the UL Research Institutes—“enters an uncontrollable, self-heating state.” That can generate high temperatures, smoke, fire, and expulsion of gas, shrapnel, and particulate matter, the safety research organization says.

Lithium-ion cells generate electricity via the movement of electrons and lithium ions. Electrolytes, the chemical between the negative and positive electrodes in a lithium-ion battery, are flammable. Should its casing rupture, a short-circuiting battery can heat the electrolytes to the point that the battery catches fire, Thomas Barth, special investigations chief for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) highway safety branch, told Leader’s Edge in 2023. One of these fires in an electric vehicle can require upward of 20,000 gallons of water to extinguish, with the hazard compounded by the flames’ resistance to foam extinguisher and the potential for a multi-stage fire as different parts of the battery compartment ignite, Barth said.

The danger extends past the fire itself, as the battery and synthetic substances from the interior of a vehicle can release lithium dioxide and other toxic gases as they burn.

“It’s just with the nature of golf carts and the… prevalence of lithium-ion batteries in golf carts, it’s becoming more of an obvious issue for country clubs,” Lott says. He noted that they are also used, less widely, for maintenance vehicles and equipment.

The topic is a “conversation piece” for members of the National Club Association, the trade body for private clubs, says Small. The organization declined to comment for this article.

“Attention to reliability and safety in our design process is the Club Car difference,” says David Hules, director of product management, golf portfolio, at Club Car. “Our lithium vehicles include an industry leading high safety IP-67 rated battery housing that exceeds industry safety standards, a vehicle control module to manage the battery, and are tested to meet our durability standards. These steps make Club Car lithium vehicles among the safest in the industry.”

Representatives for Yamaha and E-Z-GO parent company Textron did not respond to questions about their safety protocols.

Not Burning Down the House

The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, which represents makers of golf carts and other power gear, emphasizes the need to follow manufacturer guidance for using and storing battery-electric systems including lithium-ion batteries.

Among its recommendations: recharge using the manufacturer-specified charger, and only when the temperature is within designated limits; never use a battery pack or other gear that has been altered or broken; allow only trained repair personnel to service the battery, and only with parts approved by the manufacturer; and lithium-ion battery packs that are out of service should not be stored near metal objects such as coins, keys, or nails, which “can make a connection from one terminal to another.”

If golf cart storage cannot be shifted to a separate building, Sentry Insurance recommends installing a three-hour firewall to isolate storage space within a clubhouse, Grant says. As the term suggests, that would be a barrier capable of withstanding contact with flames for three hours, slowing the spread of a fire.

Temperature control is also important to offset both extreme heat and cold that could cause a battery to fail and ignite, adds Mike Mock, corporate property specialist for Sentry safety and loss control services.

Club Car said it provides vehicle operation, maintenance, and storage recommendations in its operator’s manuals. The company emphasizes the safety value of careful operation and regular maintenance of the golf carts. “We recommend that course operators, dealers and distributors, and individual vehicle owners review the operator’s manual and other published information regarding proper operation and maintenance of Club Car vehicles,” Hules says.

Daily inspections of batteries and staff training on using the systems are also key, Mock says.

“The storage methods within the actual facilities are whatever the manufacturer of that golf cart and/or battery recommends. So that’s going to be what the insurance company is going to recommend as well. You know, obviously, proper maintenance, just making sure the facility is clean is going to be critical,” Lott says. “So where the insurance company sees this is when they come in and do an inspection of a facility.”

The insurance company could suggest or require that the insured relocate the batteries—backed by the threat of coverage cancellation or non-renewal—if it finds issues with storage, maintenance, or cleaning of the batteries that increases exposure, Lott says.