Cargo Ship With Electric Vehicles Burning is Abandoned in Pacific Ocean
Salvage vessels are on their way.
As my colleague Mary Chastain reported in her post on the Waymo facility filled with riderless electric vehicles (EVs) and powered scooters that was set on fire during the Los Angeles riots, I have often noted that lithium battery fires are intense and challenging to extinguish.
There is another example to add to the collection of incidents related to lithium batteries. Last week, a British-managed, Liberian-flagged vessel named Morning Midas was traveling from Yantai, China, to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, carrying approximately 3,000 vehicles (750 to 800 of which were either fully electric or hybrid vehicles).
On route, while the ship was roughly 300–340 miles southwest of Adak, Alaska, a fire broke out on board. Smoke was initially observed emanating from the deck loaded with electric vehicles. The crew of 22 immediately attempted to suppress the fire using onboard systems but were unable to control it.
The cargo vessel has now been abandoned. And while no cause has been officially assigned, the lithium batteries are the prime suspect.
Photographs show the vessel still smoking hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline days after the initial distress signal was received. Thick columns of smoke can be seen billowing into the sky.
Incredibly, all 22 crew members were safely evacuated onto a lifeboat on Tuesday afternoon and later rescued by a nearby merchant vessel.
They remained aboard the rescue ship as of Thursday, the vessel’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said.
…The cause of the fire remains under investigation but lithium-ion batteries, widely used in electric vehicles, are known to present firefighting challenges due to their high combustibility once ignited.
Salvage crews are on their way.
A salvage team is expected to arrive early next week at the scene of a cargo ship that was carrying about 3,000 vehicles to Mexico when it caught fire in waters off Alaska’s Aleutian island chain.
A tug carrying salvage specialists and special equipment is expected to arrive at the location of the Morning Midas around Monday, the ship’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said Thursday. The crew will assess the ship’s condition, and a separate tug with firefighting and ocean towage capabilities is being arranged, the company said in its statement. In the meantime, officials are using the ship’s onboard satellite-connected systems to monitor it.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in 2023, I covered a similar fire aboard a ship called Fremantle Highway. The vessel spent a week burning on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars, nearly 500 of which were reported to be electric vehicles (EVs), before finally being tugged into a Dutch port for salvaging (allaying fears that it could sink and impact shipping lanes).
After much wrangling and European regulatory drama, the boat was salvaged, renamed, and sold to China. The connection to the EVs and their lithium batteries on board was completely minimized.
A year after the devastating fire aboard the Japanese-owned car carrier Fremantle Highway, the salvaged portions of the vessel are set to start a new life. A court battle over the status of the salvaged vessel has been settled with the Dutch authorities agreeing to issue an export license for the hulk now known as Floor.
…The Floor has been moved to a North Sea anchorage and is waiting for a salvage tug which will tow it to Xiamen, China. Dutch media reports indicate the vessel has been acquired by Qingshan Shipyard Group which will complete the repairs in China.
A year after the devastating fire, the authorities are yet to release a final report. Initial speculation was that the electric vehicles caused the fire but later reports have downplayed that speculation Reports have said it appeared the fire began in other cargo areas.
Chemistry does not change, no matter how much the narratives are manipulated. Lithium battery fires will remain a significant fire response challenge unless their inherent chemistry changes.
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Comments
“Political plague” ships.
Once is an anomaly, twice is a trend.
Considering the propensity of EV’s to burst into flames during transit they should all be shipped without batteries.
Probably not (economically) feasible because in most EVs, replacing (or installing) the battery pack is a big (and hugely expensive) job. For a Taycan, it’s a 2-day job. Tesla is industry-leading in ease of battery pack replacement. But, even they need a day. EV manufacturers shipping globally would need a secondary assembly plant at the destination.
well if that plant is in america then jobs jobs jobs!
In any case, you still have to ship the batteries. At best instead of having ships full of EV’s catching fire, you’d have ships full of EV batteries catching fire.
If that happened you’d also end up of lots of new EV’s without batteries sitting in lots waiting for another ship to bring them batteries to replace any lost in shipping.
Finally (and obviously) you’d significantly increase the selling cost of the vehicles since you’d have to pay shipping independently for shipping for the battery and the rest of the vehicle, and then you’d have final assembly costs for combining the two.
You could always fly the batteries to their destination.
Oh, wait….
You could modify EVs to run without any batteries like a Fred Flintsone vehicle.
So, a built in tariff?
“Finally (and obviously) you’d significantly increase the selling cost of the vehicles…”
Our Congresscritters would just increase the EV subsidy levels., problem solved! Every taxpayer*still gets to help pay for their heighbor’s EV.
* Taxpayer in this instance limited to those who actually pay Federal Income Tax, excludes those who owe no tax but receive “refund” checks.
Errata: Taxpayer*(space) and neighbor’s.
Sure they would but those would be American jobs and beats flaming cargo ships
That wouldn’t work. All those batteries are made overseas, too.
Regarding Los Angeles, I knew some Waymo cars had been burned. But, an entire facility of them?
That’s way mo than I would’ve expected.
A few days before Fathers’ Day and you’re telling Dad jokes?
Maritime EV fires are best treated by submarines.
Environmentally toxic submarines.
You want to SINK it? And put those batteries directly into an ocean full of saltwater?
What did the fish in the sea ever do to you, man?
(Because I was thinking the same thing, at first.)
It should be noted that one does not fight a fire involving a lithium-ion battery by pouring water on it…that only makes it burn hotter, faster, and sometimes explode.
None of the original sources I can find have ANY information about what kind of fire suppression systems this vessel had for the EV cargo area. It is my understanding that that most cargo vessels simply pump sea water for their primary fire suppression; if this had been done it would have been literally the worst possible response, and probably spread the fire(s) from a single vehicle’s battery to multiple vehicles.
In addition this post is a little outdated…refer to the following from the “gCaptain” website which also includes an updated picture (taken from a Coast Guard Herky-bird) showing the semi-charred hulk drifting loosely, and noting that a salvage tug had arrived on June 9 (now 2 days ago).
https://gcaptain.com/salvage-tug-arrives-as-car-carrier-morning-midas-continues-to-burn-off-alaska-coast/
This video will shed light on lithium fires. https://youtu.be/Qzt9RZ0FQyM
For all my solar system storage I use FeLiPo4 batteries, They do not catch fire like Lithium-Ion.
I had a lithium ion fire in my house many years ago. I always chare on either ceramic tile or slate. The battery was 40 Ah, 12 volts. I put the fire out with a tri class fire extinguisher. Because l-ion can reignite I picked the whole end table up, which had slate inlays, and rushed it outside. The battery was small and I emptied a ten pound extinguisher on it.
A tri class extinguisher is suitable to L-ion fires, but will not necessarily stop reignition.
The only danger with LiFePo4 is stored electrical energy and electrolysis producing hydrogen gas. Most cars use this chemistry.
“What’s Happening With Shipping” had a video on this. It mentioned that SOP for dealing with EV battery fires at sea is 1 Contain the fire 2 Flood the sealed compartment with CO2. It won’t stop the batteries burning but it might prevent them setting other flammable material on fire 3 Abandon ship as soon as rescue is available. EV battery fires in port are difficult but not impossible to fight. The Dutch recently beat one by having fire boats cool the seaward hull with sea water spray, while from the pier nitrogen gas was used to chill the batteries enough to stop burning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFhhvr_afws
the greta flotilla?
I love the smell of burning “zero emissions” fantasies in the morning. It smells like… vindication.
People from south of the border love the smell of Waymo vehicles burning in the evening. They smell like Mexico.
It does overpower all that sewage heading north.
Or Tim Walz’s Minneapolis.
Or Tim Walz’s wife’s stated love of the smell of burning tires.
They need to make sure it’s towed (still burning, IMO) back to its port of origin. Make those people deal with it.
After M/V Golden Ray (a Marshall Island-flagged car carrier) capsized just outside the Port of Brunswick, GA in September of 2019, it took exactly TWO YEARS (and a week) to cut her up and remove her and her cargo, 4,200 Hyundais. Shortly after it happened, ‘authorities’ estimated it would take a ‘few months’ to complete the salvage.
The salvage costs alone were almost $900M….almost 10x the value of all its cargo, combined.
Towed to a port so it is out of the sea lanes and sold for salvage by the owners.
Now that Antifa terrorists have started using Waymos as super-hot fire bombs and toxic-smoke bombs EVs will have to be banned.
With the super-heat and the toxic smoke, there is no way to fight these fires in enclosed spaces like parking garages.
They’ll ignite every car in the structure and bring whole buildings down. We don’t need them and they are way too dangerous.
When they run out of Waymos they will use whatever vehicles are at hand whether there’s people in them or not.
Why did the batteries burst into fire? I’m curious about that,
A short circuit inside or outside the battery can cause the battery to get sufficiently hot that it can ignite.
Or, maybe they had some seawater get into the hold and slosh onto something exposed.
These are Chinese EVs.
I see. Makes me wonder how they can be approved for commercial use, Of course I know why they are approved but still.
Somehow it got splashed by sea water? Where on earth did they come into contact wwith sea water all the way out in the middle of the Pacific. All it takes is one bad wave, or a bad egg on the boat.
The gCaptain site shows a ship that has been burning. The fire is burning hot, apparently getting hot enough to radiate across bulkheads and start fires. That is a serious problem, indicating the ship design is not compatible with the cargo or the firefighting systems.
This ship is also losing stability. It is shedding mass at a rate the might approach a ton a second. Lots of smoke is visible. Will the fuel tanks be compromised? Possibly, as the fire is already hot enough to burn the paint off the *outside* of the ship. All paint, plastics, rubber, hydrocarbons fuels, aluminum and magnesium will burn off. It is in the north Pacific. What keeps this mess from going unstable and capsizing? Nothing.
There was also the Felicity Ace lithium ion fire in 2022 that sank that cargo ship with 4,000 VW vehicles on board.
Folks who own one should take note that if you keep an EV in an attached garage and it catches fire, your home is likely a “goner”.
A floating haz-mat disaster.
Not so far from our fishing grounds at that.
I ride a car ferry multiple times a week. I often see EV vehicles on the ferries. Inevitably one will catch fire one of these days and there will be injuries, if not fatalities.
By comparison, the WA ferry service requires fuel trucks to travel alone on special runs.
As with most now generally accepted woke-science concepts, it’s never the most obvious cause, such as more frequent than acceptable EV lithium battery sudden combustion incidents, responsible for the fire aboard the MORNING MIDAS (and the FREMANTLE HIGHWAY). No, it must be something else more politically palatable to the green left.
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