Carrefour Belgium bans electric cars from roof-top parking lots

Customers with electric cars can no longer park them in any of the 18 rooftop parking lots that Carrefour operates in Belgium. The retailer says this is a precautionary measure: electric cars are heavy and difficult to extinguish.

Possible infrastructure issues

Shoppers visiting a Carrefour store with a rooftop parking lot must now park their electric cars on the ground floor. The company told Sudinfo that this is a precautionary measure. “Since electric cars are significantly heavier than cars with internal combustion engines, this places a different load on the building’s structure. If, hypothetically, the entire roof were occupied by electric cars, that could lead to infrastructure problems.”

After all, Carrefour’s stores and rooftop parking lots were built at a time when heavy electric vehicles did not yet exist. They simply aren’t designed to accommodate them. There is a second reason: fire hazard. If an electric car’s battery catches fire, it is much more difficult to extinguish than a conventional car fire. Containers, into which burning electric vehicles are often submerged, are difficult to position on a rooftop parking lot.

Carrefour assures customers that there are plenty of parking spaces on the ground floor, where the charging stations are also located.