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Ship Carrying EVs Abandoned in Pacific After Catching Fire
- jmclnx 1y agoA non-paywalled link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/cargo-ship-vanished-in-smoke-with-3-000-cars-and-evs-still-trapped-below-deck/ar-AA1G4YzY https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/cargo-ship-vanished-in... I think instead of trying to click on these pay-walled links we should do a search and comment with a non-paywalled link.
- floxy 1y agoHere's another less spammy article: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a64967938/car-carrier-electric-vehicles-burning-pacific-ocean-rescue/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a64967938/car-carrier-elec...
- xnx 1y agoAgain? These ships must make attractive sabotage (or insurance fraud?) targets. > In 2022, a vessel carrying about 4,000 vehicles caught fire in the Atlantic and ended up sinking despite efforts to tow it to safety. A year later another ship with close to 3,000 cars on board caught fire near the Dutch coast.
- D13Fd 1y agoCouldn’t it just be that EVs are highly combustible and prone to spontaneous ignition? It may be that we just need better means of shipping these vehicles so that they are less likely to catch fire in an uncontrollable way (maybe with the batteries uninstalled).
- sagarm 1y agoThe reporting of the 2022 sunken car carrier did not mention EVs, saying that only "Porches and Bentleys" were lost. Even if the cars themselves have no fuel, the ship has lots of it. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-coast-guard-responding-cargo-ship-fire-near-alaska-no-injuries-reported-2025-06-04/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-coast-guard-responding-carg...
- rgreeko42 1y agoWhy would we want unsafe vehicles to reach consumers? Better that they don't reach the showroom if that's the case.
- audunw 1y agoNo, EVs are far less likely to spontaneous ignition than ICE cars. The statistics on this is very clear now. Depending on the source an ICE car is 10-20 times of a similar age is more likely to catch fire. Since most EVs are new I would guess the statistics is mostly applicable to fairly new cars, and so should also be applicable to brand new cars. One caveat is there may be some EVs from less reputable Chinese car companies that may fall outside these statistics, since they’ve not been sold in the countries where I’ve checked (Northern Europe and USA). Some smaller Chinese companies cut a lot of corners, and they have had an explosive growth of EV car companies.
- lupusreal 1y agoThere's a qualitative difference between a car that's likely to burn on the road when being driven, and one that's likely to burn in the middle of the night when parked in a garage attached to my house.
- mrguyorama 1y ago>one that's likely to burn in the middle of the night when parked in a garage attached to my house. ICE cars do this all the time. It doesn't make the news as much as a brand new product doing that. Granted, the "EVs are less likely to start fires" take is also misleading. It's not usually doing a "like for like" comparison, because the majority of ICE fires are in very old and poorly maintained cars. Things like wires chewed through by rats, oil leaking out of gaskets and accumulating, stupid wiring for speakers, etc. It will depend how gracefully the average EV ages when owned by the average person who ignores maintenance. Keep in mind we've had old lithium ion batteries for two decades now, and we don't see your average phone store randomly burning down. Or those kiosks you can sell absolutely clapped out, old phones to. How often do those burn down?
- lupusreal 1y agoPhones and laptops burn often enough that I am careful to never leave one unattended on a couch or bed.
- lazyeye 1y agoI found this to be a fascinating read about maritime insurance fraud https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58395055-dead-in-the-water https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58395055-dead-in-the-wat...
- lupusreal 1y agoBaseless conspiracy theories... or lithium batteries sometimes catch fire. Hmm.
- t1234s 1y agoAny info on the brands of electric vehicles onboard?
- linotype 1y agoOf the 3000 cars only 800 were EVs, and there’s no evidence yet they were the source of the fire. The headline seems misleading.
- topkai22 1y agoFrom the MSN article linked below: “ UK-based shipowner Zodiac Maritime has since confirmed that the fire originated in the section of the vessel carrying electric vehicles.”
- whartung 1y agoIs an EV with 2% charge in the battery any more or less prone to spontaneous combustion than one with 10%, 50%, or 100% of charge? I'm under the assumption that these are roll on/roll off carriers and that cars themselves are driven on and off (so they have some level of charge or fuel). I know that batteries (apparently) can "just catch fire", I just don't know what the risk of fire to charge capacity of the battery is.
- dboreham 1y agoHigher than 80% is bad.
- lazide 1y agoHigher state of charge absolutely correlates with fire danger - there are physical mechanisms in play where highly charged lithium batteries can have dentritic shorts, for example, which cause thermal runaway almost immediately. It’s a much higher risk during charging as that is when the structures typically form, but they can also be borderline and then ‘cross the border’ suddenly when just sitting there.
- SoftTalker 1y agoIt stands to reason (and simple physics/chemistry) that a fully-charged battery is going to burn more intensely than a depleted one. But as I undertstand it, Li ion batteries need a minimum "base" charge below which the battery can be damaged or become unable to be recharged (at least not by normal means). So I'd guess that like phones and other devices, they are shipped with roughly a 50% charge, allowing them to be driven on and off the ship and then on and off a truck before finally arriving at the retail dealership or other buyer's location.
- benji-york 1y agoDid the front fall off?
- smallnix 1y agoThe frunk fell off
- rkagerer 1y agoIf EV's used well-engineered Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries (ie. with proper controllers, built-in heaters to avoid sub-zero charging, etc.) how much fire risk would that alleviate?
- rkagerer 1y agoSome discussion: https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/97206/why-dont-cars-use-lifepo4-batteries-as-they-seem-to-be-equivalent-in-price-to-a https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/97206/why-dont...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bariumbitmap 1y agohttps://archive.is/9ZeUR https://archive.is/9ZeUR
- Lendal 1y agoWhere does the buck stop in this scenario? My assumption is the manufacturers have already been paid, so does that mean they don't care about this? I'm thinking the individual dealer owners of the vehicles probably have to file claims with their insurance companies. So insurance rates will go up. Is that where it ends?
- floren 1y ago> EV fires can take up to 8,000 gallons of water to cool the lithium-ion batteries. where could a cargo ship possibly obtain that quantity of water
- coderintherye 1y agoMost large ships have large water storage vessels as well as make fresh water using pumps (while operating). They also usually have separate pumps to pump salt water for firefighting. But in the event the pumps are not running that's a problem such as what happened with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6)
- briandw 1y agoWhy is this news? ICE cars in container ships catch fire frequently. One example was the Grande Costa D’Avorio at Port Newark in 2023, which resulted in two firefighter fatalities and over $23 million in vessel damage. Not EV related. https://gcaptain.com/ntsb-calls-for-national-reforms-after-fatal-port-newark-ship-fire/ https://gcaptain.com/ntsb-calls-for-national-reforms-after-f... Bloomberg didn't cover it (at least a quick search didn't find a story) More to the point, ICE vehicles pose fire risks 60 times higher than EVs. https://www.evengineeringonline.com/did-you-know-ice-vehicles-pose-fire-risks-60-times-higher-than-evs/ https://www.evengineeringonline.com/did-you-know-ice-vehicle... This is anti EV FUD from Bloomberg.
- mrguyorama 1y ago> Hybrid vehicles report 3,475 fires per 100,000 vehicles, driven by the complexity of their dual powertrains. Gasoline and diesel cars follow with 1,530 fires, while EVs report significantly fewer at 25 fires. Their own data is showing that their conclusion might be sketchy. If EVs were so naturally unlikely to start fires, shouldn't hybrids only have a small number more fires per 100000 than ICE vehicles? Car fires usually come from poorly maintained electrics and leaking oil. How could adding an EV system to that make it so much more likely to ignite, but so unlikely to ignite when it's just the EV? Most full EVs are still extremely expensive and sold to the luxury market and are even fairly new. How often do fairly new, luxury ICEs and Hybrids ignite?
- floxy 1y ago>How could adding an EV system to that make it so much more likely to ignite, but so unlikely to ignite when it's just the EV? I have no idea, but just spit-balling: - Heat from the engine causes premature embrittlement of the high voltage wiring harnesses insulation system, causing failures that lead to short circuits. Causing more fires. - Layers of grime/oil from the engine / oil-changes that gets on power electronic components. Electronic component fails in a way that lets the smoke out. In an EV, this just disables the vehicle. In a hybrid, the extra layer of oil catches on fire. - Power electronics components under the hood are subject to much higher operating temperatures, due to proximity to the engine, leading to earlier failures, of which some cause fires, due to the closeness of flammable liquids. - Fully battery electric vehicles are more pampered / maintained / see less severe operating conditions. BEVs more likely to be stored in a garage where they get charged, maybe fewer mice chewing through the high voltage cabling, etc.. - Hybrid batteries are stressed more, from the much more frequent full charge cycles. Batteries also see more heat from living in the engine bay(?). Hybrid batteries are included in more budget-minded vehicles, with lower price points, and so the batteries are sourced from less reliable tier two suppliers with less quality control? Adds up to more failures and more fires? - Are the more frequent hybrid fires equally distributed across manufactures? Or is Toyota on one end of the spectrum and say Stellantis on the other? - BEV-only companies have obsessed over weight in the quest for efficiency, which reduces wiring and parts count, which reduces failure points that can cause fires. Where hybrids and EVs from traditional ICE companies have a less optimal BoM, with more components reused from existing product lines, leading to additional complication in the design with more failure points. - Hybrid fires are predominately associated with crashes. The engine bay is crammed with more components, because of the dual power trains. Crash causes flammable liquids to escape, and a high voltage system failure ignites the flammable liquid. BEVs in a crash would have the ignition source, but no fuel. Gas-only has the leaked fuel, but no ignition source. Hybrids have both. - Hybrid vehicles are more popular with less affluent owners. Vehicle gets in a moderate accident, cousin Vinny gives it a once over to get things running again, possibly overlooking damage to the high voltage system that manifests as a fire later on.
- almost_usual 1y agoTriggers the “Battery fires will be bad during a catastrophic earthquake” thought.
- bell-cot 1y agoOther than pancaked parking garages, how many EV's would a major earthquake damage badly enough to start a battery fire? And how many crushed ICE cars would be turned into gasoline fires?
- OutOfHere 1y agoEnsuring that EVs are drained to be <1% powered should be an obvious hard requirement. This is no matter the mode of transport.
- mrguyorama 1y agoAre you not aware that Lithium batteries cannot be fully drained like that without causing damage to them?
- OutOfHere 1y agoI was not. I guess 40% then.
- neogodless 1y agohttps://gcaptain.com/a-brief-look-back-at-recent-car-carrier-fires/ https://gcaptain.com/a-brief-look-back-at-recent-car-carrier... Worth examination