EV-Fueled Inferno Forces Crew To Abandon Ship Carrying 3,000 Cars Across Pacific

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

EV-Fueled Inferno Forces Crew To Abandon Ship Carrying 3,000 Cars Across Pacific

If fire departments on land have problems

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

the crew of a ship doesn’t stand a chance against hundreds of flaming lithium-ion batteries. A cargo ship carrying around 3,000 vehicles across the Pacific Ocean caught fire on Tuesday. The Morning Midas, a 600-foot cargo ship, was in the middle of a voyage from Yantai, China to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico when the fire broke out.

Zodiac Maritime, the ship’s London-based operator, noted that smoke was first spotted on a deck carrying 800 electric vehicles. Once the blaze got out of control, the vessel’s 22 crew members abandoned ship via lifeboat. With the ship roughly 300 southwest of Alaska, the U.S. Coast Guard dispatched aircrews and a cutter to respond to the emergency,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The evacuating crew on the lifeboat was transferred by the USCG to one of the three other merchants at the scene, helping to fight the fire. Zodiac Maritime wouldn’t comment on which automaker’s vehicles were burning to a crisp. This is an ongoing story, and we will update when we know more about the fate of the Morning Midas.

Read more: These V6 Engines Put The LS1 V8 To Shame

This Isn’t The Fire That EV Batteries Fueled A Ship Fire

Felicia Ace at the Port of Rotterdam in 2007 – Alf van Beem / Wikimedia Commons

The inferno on Morning Midas will remind many of the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The 650-foot cargo vessel burst into flames while carrying 4,000 cars built by Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Volkswagen. Despite the hope of towing the ship to port once the fire was put out, Felicia Ace sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The lithium-ion batteries fitted to the EV onboard kept the fire burning much longer than expected. One of the cars that ended up on the seafloor was a Porsche Boxster Spyder ordered by Matt Farah, host of The Smoking Tire. He was just glad that the ship’s crew escaped unharmed.

Fighting EV fires in the middle of an ocean is a tall task for any crew. It often takes tens of thousands of gallons of water to douse a burning lithium-ion battery. While it might seem straightforward to put a pump over the side and use saltwater to put out the flames, it’s not a viable option.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and would fuel an ongoing blaze.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

emphasize early detection and limiting water use by letting EVs burn while containing any potential spreading. We’re going to need better ways to fight battery fires if electric vehicles are going to be far more numerous.

Want more like this?

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox…

Read the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#EVFueled #Inferno #Forces #Crew #Abandon #Ship #Carrying #Cars #Pacific

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up