Technology Report

October 28, 2026

SCDF Vehicle Extrication Robot

Close-up of SCDF’s Vehicle Extrication Robot in a car park: the robot’s black-and-red lifting frame with red clamps cradles the front wheel of a soot-covered gray sedan, raising it off the floor — Photo: Singapore Civil Defence Force via Lianhe Zaobao

SINGAPORE — Putting out an electric-car fire does not always end it. A lithium-ion battery that has burned can keep heating itself from the inside and flare up again after the flames are out, and when the car is parked in an enclosed garage, firefighters have to stay close to a vehicle that may reignite. On October 28, 2026, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), the city-state’s fire and rescue service, launched a remote-controlled robot that drags such a car out of the way. Its name is the Vehicle Extrication Robot, or VXR.

Sim Ann, Singapore’s second minister for home affairs, announced the robot at the opening of the Singapore-International Disaster and Emergency Management Expo, held this year with the Asian Conference on Disaster Reduction at the Singapore Expo. She said electric vehicles made up more than 60 percent of new vehicle registrations in Singapore in the first half of 2026. “Lithium-ion batteries can undergo thermal runaway, and affected vehicles may remain at risk of re-ignition even after a fire has been extinguished,” she said. Thermal runaway is a chain reaction in which a battery cell heats faster than it can cool, and the heat spreads to the tightly packed cells around it.

The VXR is a tracked machine about the size of a regular car. According to SCDF and reporters who saw it at the expo, a pincer-like lifting mechanism at the rear raises a burned car by its front wheels, and the robot then tows it away. An operator can drive it from up to 300 meters (about 980 feet) away, so firefighters can keep their distance during what SCDF calls recovery operations. The robot also carries an integrated water-mist system that, SCDF says, shields it from radiant heat while it works. The Straits Times reported that the mist also blankets the car being towed.

The robot fits into a sequence SCDF showed in a video at the launch, as described by AsiaOne and Lianhe Zaobao. Firefighters first knock down the flames. If the car is in an enclosed car park, the VXR pulls it out to open ground. There, crews cool it with other equipment, including SCDF’s unmanned firefighting machines and a battery fire-extinguishing system that pierces the battery casing and injects water directly into the pack. SCDF describes the VXR as the latest addition to its fleet of unmanned capabilities.

SCDF says the robot has begun operational trials at Punggol Fire Station, in the city-state’s northeast, and that a second unit will go to Kallang Fire Station early next year. Officials gave the Kallang start as April 2027.

SCDF has not said who built the VXR, how much it weighs, how heavy a vehicle it can lift and tow, how fast it moves, how long it can run, or what it cost. It also has not said how the trials will be judged or whether more units will follow. The robot was one of two capabilities Sim highlighted. The other was the Gen 7E ambulance, which SCDF put into service in May.