You undoubtedly heard about the fire onboard the transport ship, Felicity Ace, in the Azores and the subsequent sinking of the vessel along with its half billion dollar cargo of expensive automobiles. You may not have heard that fighting the fire was exacerbated by the lithium ion batteries of EVs which may even have caused the fire. From the report at CTIF:
Joao Mendes Cabecas, who is the commanding officer of the port on the island, predicted that the fire would be difficult to fight successfully. According to Reuter´s news agency, he stated a few days into the fire that the lithium-ion batteries in the cars would “keep the fire alive”.
Special equipment for extinguishing battery fires were reportedly at the time on the way to the ship´s location.
It was not clear whether the batteries first sparked the fire.
“The ship is burning from one end to the other … everything is on fire about five meters above the water line,” Joao Mendes Cabecas said to press outlets at the time.
The loss is expected to increase the insurance costs of shipping substantially says Nick Blenkey at MarineLog:
Volkswagen AG has come far from the days of the beloved air-cooled bug. These days its portfolio includes brands such as Bentley and Lamborghini. That means that the fire still burning aboard the MOL car carrier Felicity Ace could soon join the list of very expensive maritime casualties, pushing up the costs of marine insurance.
No comments on whether insuring all cargoes will be increased or just those for shipping vehicles.
I’m not opposed in principle to electric vehicles. Indeed, I strongly suspect that a lot more of them are in our collective future, even in the United States and Australia where sales remain relatively low. That may be particularly true in highly urbanized areas where they’re more practical than in the suburbs, exurbs, or rural areas. In Europe sales of EVs are skyrocketing. Roughly a third of new vehicle sales in Germany last year were EVs.
But we shouldn’t ignore their risks, either, which may further impede sales.
Yes, EVs are not risk free. The question is how do they compare to gasoline powered cars. It has been a while since I read on this but if memory serves car fires are a bit more frequent with gas engine cars allowing for mileage.
Steve
You’re missing the point which is that EV batteries present specific risks unique to them which, based on the captain’s remarks and the ensuing loss, they were not prepared to deal with. If these risks are to be mitigated they will need to be prepared for them.
My brother lives in Germany and got a free EV. The subsidies over there for EV’s are significant.
As far as EV’s being transported, there are some risks, but I don’t think it will amount to much in the grand scheme of things.
The loss on this single ship appears to be the largest in recent history, more than the maritime cargo losses of the last 15 or so years put together.
As I noted it doesn’t mean you don’t do it—it means that you’re prepared to handle the eventualities.
There was an airplane that crashed due to a fire when they were carrying large load of lithium batteries. The airlines learned how to transport them. I think the boating people will also need to learn.Once that is figured out it should mostly just be a concern at the consumer level.
Steve
Yes, that’s my point.
OT- Medical care is cheaper. Who knew?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/ECTA17635
Steve
Lithium’s chemical nature presents some severe issues in extinguishing a fire. It melts at a low temperature and can float on water. Hence you can’t just drown it. It will just burn on top of water.
Lithium is extremely oxidizable because of its loose electron. Think hydrogen. Very difficult to extinguish a fire by, say, flooding a vessel with argon or nitrogen.
The current method deals with these problems with what might be described as a holding action: simply spraying a water mist on the fire to control the heat until it burns out. That’s fine for a Tesla. For a large cargo vessel filled with cars……….not so much.
I’m sure a practical solution can and will be found eventually. But its more than “they’ll just figure something out.” Its a thorny problem. (Of course I heard again today that Joe Biden is going to cure cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Maybe they should put him on the case.) It is likely to be very expensive and still a high insurance risk. And I believe that was Dave’s point.