A ship carrying 3,000 cars to Mexico was abandoned in the middle of the Pacific after catching fire, highlighting a growing risk to the transportation of electric vehicles, reported the Japan Times.
Demand for lithium-ion batteries, including in EVs, is bringing a new risk to the global shipping industry, particularly given the value of the vehicles on board the largest car-carrying vessels, according to a report last month by insurance giant Allianz.
The fire aboard the Morning Midas occurred 480 kilometres south of Adak Island in Alaska, according to the US Coast Guard. Smoke was first seen coming from a deck of the vessel, whose cargo included about 800 EVs, said the ship's manager Zodiac Maritime.
The crew initiated firefighting procedures but the blaze could not be brought under control, Zodiac said. Responders were being deployed to support salvage and firefighting operations, it added.
The US Coast Guard transfered 22 crew transferring them to a nearby merchant ship.
The 46,800-ton Morning Midas, built in 2006 by China's Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry Co, departed the Port of Yantai on May 26, according to ship-tracking data. Prior to that, it called at two other Chinese ports: Nansha in the south and Shanghai.
Fires involving EVs are often harder to extinguish and more dangerous to fight. The conditions of a tightly packed car-carrying cargo ship lead to limited ventilation, which can rapidly intensify heat. The confined, steel-lined environment makes fire suppression and rescues significantly more dangerous.
Additionally, when an electric vehicle burns, it does so for longer and the fire gets hotter. The flames can end up accelerating through chain reactions and spiralling out of control quickly, a process called thermal runaway. EV fires can take up to 30,000 litres of water to cool the lithium-ion batteries.
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.
SeaNews Turkey
Demand for lithium-ion batteries, including in EVs, is bringing a new risk to the global shipping industry, particularly given the value of the vehicles on board the largest car-carrying vessels, according to a report last month by insurance giant Allianz.
The fire aboard the Morning Midas occurred 480 kilometres south of Adak Island in Alaska, according to the US Coast Guard. Smoke was first seen coming from a deck of the vessel, whose cargo included about 800 EVs, said the ship's manager Zodiac Maritime.
The crew initiated firefighting procedures but the blaze could not be brought under control, Zodiac said. Responders were being deployed to support salvage and firefighting operations, it added.
The US Coast Guard transfered 22 crew transferring them to a nearby merchant ship.
The 46,800-ton Morning Midas, built in 2006 by China's Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry Co, departed the Port of Yantai on May 26, according to ship-tracking data. Prior to that, it called at two other Chinese ports: Nansha in the south and Shanghai.
Fires involving EVs are often harder to extinguish and more dangerous to fight. The conditions of a tightly packed car-carrying cargo ship lead to limited ventilation, which can rapidly intensify heat. The confined, steel-lined environment makes fire suppression and rescues significantly more dangerous.
Additionally, when an electric vehicle burns, it does so for longer and the fire gets hotter. The flames can end up accelerating through chain reactions and spiralling out of control quickly, a process called thermal runaway. EV fires can take up to 30,000 litres of water to cool the lithium-ion batteries.
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.
SeaNews Turkey
