EV-Carrying Ship Sinks In Pacific Ocean After Catching Fire (ttnews.com) 137
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Transport Topics: A ship that caught fire in the Pacific Ocean earlier this month has sunk. The vessel was abandoned in the middle of the pacific -- about 360 miles from land -- after a blaze. It was carrying about 3,000 vehicles of which about 800 were EVs. Damage caused by the fire was compounded by heavy weather, causing the ship to take on water and ultimately sink on June 23, the vessel's manager, Zodiac Maritime, said in a statement on June 24.
Smoke was initially seen emanating from a deck carrying electric vehicles, Zodiac said when the incident first happened. While the ship's relative distance from land means that it will sink into ocean that is approximately 5,000 meters deep, it also made a rapid response trickier. The second of three specialist vessels that were due to assist the ship arrived on June 15, more than a week after the fire first broke out. The vessel was carrying cars from a range of manufacturers including Chery Automobile Co. and Great Wall Motor Co. to Mexico, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Smoke was initially seen emanating from a deck carrying electric vehicles, Zodiac said when the incident first happened. While the ship's relative distance from land means that it will sink into ocean that is approximately 5,000 meters deep, it also made a rapid response trickier. The second of three specialist vessels that were due to assist the ship arrived on June 15, more than a week after the fire first broke out. The vessel was carrying cars from a range of manufacturers including Chery Automobile Co. and Great Wall Motor Co. to Mexico, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Did it halt first? (Score:4, Funny)
If not, better check the circuit or microcode to make sure the relevant opcode was implemented correctly.
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cheap EVs (Score:2, Funny)
Everyone wants a cheap EV, right up to the point it catches fire.
Re:cheap EVs (Score:5, Funny)
Is burning an EV better for the environment than say, burning a Ford F-150 with dual American flags?
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Why not both? [ford.com]
Now you're cooking with aluminum (Re:cheap EVs) (Score:2)
There's photos floating around the web on what is left from a battery fire in a Ford F-150. The entire back half of the aluminum frame was melted to a puddle. The cabin had all the windows busted out, paint peeled off, tires burned away, but it was enough to identify it as a Ford F-150.
Maybe I'm mistaken and it was a Chevy or something, but I recall Ford was the only one offering aluminum frames on trucks at the time but I could be mistaken on that too. The point is the battery burned hot enough long eno
Re:Now you're cooking with aluminum (Re:cheap EVs) (Score:4, Interesting)
The point is the battery burned hot enough long enough to melt aluminum. Some of the aluminum likely burned, which is just more fuel on that fire.
There's enough energy in a typical tank of gasoline to melt all of the steel in the car it comes in, so that's not especially alarming. Of course, in the typical ICE gas fire, a large amount of the heat from the burning gasoline doesn't end up going into the car body itself, but into the air in various ways. Not to mention that the steel is usually more likely to burn than to melt. In burning, fiery wreck terms I would say that EV is generally a better bet than ICE.
Of course, you can practically ship an ICE with no gas in the tank. Obviously not so easy for an EV. The really interesting question here is more a question of how the fire started. Was it a spontaneously combusting EV or EV battery, or did the fire start some other way and just spread to the EVs? It's possible we'll find out, but probably only if they had good video surveillance.
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Of course, you can practically ship an ICE with no gas in the tank. Obviously not so easy for an EV.
I'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to ship an EV with little or no charge in the battery. That doesn't make it fireproof, of course, but then again an ICE car with no gas in it is not fireproof either.
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The entire back half of the aluminum frame was melted to a puddle... I recall Ford was the only one offering aluminum frames on trucks at the time but I could be mistaken on that too.
You are indeed mistaken... Ford trucks do not have aluminum frames. They have aluminum bodies and beds, but the frames are steel.
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Neither Ford nor Chevy have any trucks with aluminum frames.
Ford has fully aluminum pickup truck bodies now. Chevy uses some aluminum parts.
Some cars are starting to use aluminum subframes now instead of steel ones to reduce front weight. Model S, R1T, Camaro, Audi Poop (etron), Porsche Taycan, Jeep Cherokee...
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Some of the aluminum likely burned, which is just more fuel on that fire.
I'm pretty sure aluminum fires aren't self sustaining in the the atmosphere.
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Is burning an EV better for the environment than say, burning a Ford F-150 with dual American flags?
Yes. Fewer toxic components plus you get rid of another F-150 and two American flags at the same time.
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No. The F150 is mostly empty. Burning batteries is really toxic.
True, because inhaling the smoke from gasoline and diesel fires is so good for your health ... LoL.
Re:cheap EVs (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the first EV carrying boats to catch fire was caused by Porsche Taycan's
https://www.autoevolution.com/... [autoevolution.com]
Really expensive EV's also catch fire, not just cheap ones.
Re:cheap EVs (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm not going to read all those linked articles. I'm just curious about a few things. How many of those resulted in loss of the ship and all cargo like the Morning Midas? Could I have just a quick summation of the kind of damage done? Such as if the ship was repaired, some kind of dollar value loss, or number of cars considered a total loss in the fire. How many of the crew were injured, how many missing, and how many killed? Thankfully all of the Morning Midas crew made it off the ship safely.
We know
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You don’t say? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
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Everyone wants a cheap EV, right up to the point it catches fire.
ICE cars don't fare too well after being flooded with seawater, either. They just usually don't catch fire afterwards.
Actually, in a weird twisted sort of way it's a good thing that flooded EVs self-destruct, because selling flooded cars to people who don't know any better is a somewhat common scam.
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This may be of interest, so I'll share it...
https://core.verisk.com/Insigh... [verisk.com]
This doesn't mean that EV fires aren't important, it's just that they seem to happen less often (per 100,000 cars) than ICE-powered vehicles. There are other citations, some newer, but I just grabbed the first one from Google.
EV fires still suck to get under control, especially for small volunteer fire departments without a lot of money to upgrade what they have. EV fires still release some pretty awful stuff - but so don't ICE-pow
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This may be of interest, so I'll share it...
https://core.verisk.com/Insigh... [verisk.com]
This doesn't mean that EV fires aren't important, it's just that they seem to happen less often (per 100,000 cars) than ICE-powered vehicles. There are other citations, some newer, but I just grabbed the first one from Google.
EV fires still suck to get under control, especially for small volunteer fire departments without a lot of money to upgrade what they have. EV fires still release some pretty awful stuff - but so don't ICE-powered vehicles.
Every time someone posts this "fires per 100k cars" thing all the articles end up quoting https://www.autoinsuranceez.co... [autoinsuranceez.com] , and that report is really bad. They make reference to NTSB statistics on vehicle fires by vehicle type, which the NTSB does not track. They also report fires per 100k cars SOLD, not per 100k cars as you indicated. It's completely irrelevant as a statistic.
Re:cheap EVs (Score:4, Interesting)
This doesn't mean that EV fires aren't important, it's just that they seem to happen less often (per 100,000 cars) than ICE-powered vehicles. There are other citations, some newer, but I just grabbed the first one from Google.
It appears you are missing the point.
EV fires still suck to get under control, especially for small volunteer fire departments without a lot of money to upgrade what they have. EV fires still release some pretty awful stuff - but so don't ICE-powered vehicles.
Now you are getting closer to the point, but might still be missing it. An ICEV when drained of fuel and lubricants is not a fire hazard, except the tires perhaps but those can even be removed too if that is considered an issue. A BEV can't have the battery removed with the same kind of ease. And should a fire start the usual practice of starving it of oxygen will not work. The compartments on a cargo ship can often be sealed tight enough that they can be flooded with N2 or CO2 to put out fires from fuel, tires, lubricants, or whatever. Batteries contain their own oxidizer and fuel, so if there's no starving it of fuel or oxygen then it needs to be starved of heat.
Even large fire departments might not have the best equipment and training for this. There's a video or three on the Fire Department Chronicles YouTube channel about EV fires. The tactic mentioned there was to just keep dumping water on it, and do so at a rate to remove heat faster than the fire produces it. A larger fire department is likely better equipped simply because they'd have more and bigger engines to pump water. Maybe they have something "fancy" like... I don't know, some kind of foam like that used for aircraft fires where they could see aluminum aircraft frames burning.
I have no inside info on this but I suspect that vehicles being moved by ship would have the bare minimum of fuel to drive them on and off the ship, if not as a matter of reducing fire risk then just as a matter of reducing costs. A BEV will need some significant level of charge on them, not full but not empty either, so they don't see damage from sitting idle. There's guides out there on what is the optimal charge for long term parking like people leaving their BEV at an airport while on a vacation, I might look that up later. That's a lot of energy to remove to contain a fire, and more yet if it gets hot enough to ignite any aluminum parts.
Are ships carrying BEVs expected to flood a compartment with seawater if there's a fire? Maybe they can have the same foam used to flood aircraft hangars if there's an aircraft on fire, assuming that is effective on a battery fire.
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Batteries contain enough oxygen for only a part of the materials and without external oxygen there will be no flames to spread the heat ... the batteries melt down, that is all. Mere radiative heat from that seems unlikely to ignite neighbouring cars
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A BEV can't have the battery removed with the same kind of ease.
Technically, that is NOT an engineering issue. It is a business management issue and it appears we will never get around it.
Re: cheap EVs (Score:2)
Eject Eject Eject (Score:2)
To bad they didn't have an auto EV eject system, (at least the ones burning).
Could have saved the ship for the cost of few cheap EV's
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EV eject system
Captain: "Computer, eject the EVs."
LCARS: "Unable to comply. EV ejection system is inoperative."
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Captain: Open the EV bay doors, HAL
HAL9000: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
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Captain: "Computer, eject the EVs."
LCARS: "Unable to comply. EV ejection system is inoperative."
Nick Fury: Then tell me what is working!!
Computer: The air conditioner is fully operational.
So Ummmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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These Luddites who have a problem with EVs need to simply become fireproof. Is it that much to ask to survive being trapped in a 3000 degree fire for 4 hours?
Luddite Idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
There are EV fires, yes. Lithium ion fires can be hard to put out, yes.
Here's a list of car transport fires: https://gcaptain.com/a-brief-l... [gcaptain.com]
Generally, the message is that sometimes there is speculation that EVs started the fires, but when things get traced to actual causes, it's usually not EVs that started the fires.
There are plenty of well-founded statistics out there showing that EVs are far less likely to catch on fire than ICEVs.
But the Luddite/lying brigade are strong here.
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The simple thing is: EVs aren't built to be stored in the location where they are used. (Outside, or in areas where water / moisture exists in large amounts.) That's a fa
Re:Luddite Idiocy (Score:5, Informative)
EVs do just great in the rain. It's not like it rains and then they suddenly burst into flame. How many fires after the last Florida hurricane? The same handful reported on Fox News over and over.
Six EV fires for Hurricane Helene. https://www.myfloridacfo.com/n... [myfloridacfo.com]
Meanwhile, 93 vehicle fires in one county alone. https://b17news.com/viral-vide... [b17news.com]
All those announcements and news stories, but it looks like the officials never followed up with final numbers. I wonder why. Doesn't fit the narrative.
I don't care about headlines. Headlines are always about what sells. Reality and headline news narratives are usually only tangentially related.
EVs catch on fire less often than ICEVs. Plenty of statistics to back that up. EVs are safer, faster, more efficient, and less polluting overall. This includes somewhat increased particulates from tire wear. People like to compare to hybrids, but hybrids add more weight, which also adds more particulates. Even more importantly, a bit of regulation and we'll have safe tires.
Some moron posted about how new ICEVs don't have emissions anymore. I suggest he suck on a tailpipe for a few minutes and let us know how it goes.
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Reminds me of when an airport carpark caught fire in the UK. Facebook idiots blamed EVs, and to this day the myth persists. In fact it was a fossil fuel Range Rover that caught fire. Well known for being unreliable and combusting.
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EV batteries are supposed to be properly sealed EV driving through water fine [youtube.com]
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Generally, the message is that sometimes there is speculation that EVs started the fires, but when things get traced to actual causes, it's usually not EVs that started the fires.
In the end. does it really matter if it's the EV that started the fire or the ship was lost because it's fire suppression systems aren't capable of extinguishing secondary EV fires?
Perhaps there needs to be new procedures in place that keep EV's away from flammable items. Or better fire suppression systems in place for shipping EV's.
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Mostly they need to stop using NCM batteries. It's not true that LFPs cannot burn or anything silly like that, but they are inherently less likely to do so [powerup-technology.com].
Then of course there's the other advantages of LFP, especially that they also age better. That is, they both can do more cycles, and suffer less from calendar age. And then there's that they contain no nickel or cobalt...
The Time-tanic. (Score:2)
3,000 new vehicles sunk in this lost cause of an auto market, with enough EVs on board to ensure a perfectly dismissable excuse is created by the white-hot lie of a lithium fire burning at write-off speed?
You don’t fuckin’ say. Boy doesn’t all that just smell awfully convenient.
Oh, you want us to know Chevy’s were on board? Let me guess. They’re Too Big To Fail. Again.
Drain it. Don’t debate it. Don’t deny it. Don’t dumbshit it. Just fucking drain it.
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Oh, you want us to know Chevy’s were on board? Let me guess. They’re Too Big To Fail. Again.
I have no idea what you are spouting off. It had Cherys on board, not Chevys. It was transporting Chinese-made and Chinese brand EVs that most of us have never heard of to Mexico, where they can be sold because of their much more lax standards in what can be sold there. Hence a very strong likelihood of why the deck of the ship carrying vehicles caught fire. If their EV batteries are anything like those Chinese scooter batteries that kept spontaneously catching fire, then there will be lots of vehicle fire
Re: The Time-tanic. (Score:2)
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Other Options (Score:2)
Dodgy vessel (Score:2)
No mention as to how the sailors fared (Score:2)
All the crew of Morning Midas escaped into a life raft and were subsequently rescued by another merchant marine vessel without any injuries.
Now please continue to bicker about the less important details as to what caused the fire.
It still seems weird. (Score:2)
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I inferred it from "the vessel was abandoned" in the summary.
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I think the point you've been missing is that EVs work fine for lots of other people. What you're saying is kind of like that you won't eat at McDonald's until they add filet mignon to the menu and get an ice cream machine that never breaks. Neat, you'll be eating elsewhere then, and that's fine.
You're responding to a bot (Score:2)
The llm used to just copy my posts verbatim but lately it's been adding some rather bizarre embellishments.
I'm not entirely sure why it's me the L
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The OP was some shitposter using what looks like a LLM trained on rsilvergun's previous posts.
I'd venture a guess that the "tire pollution" issue is mostly sour grapes with rsilvergun, since I don't think he has access to install a charger where he lives, and for the most part I'll agree that is a dealbreaker towards owning an EV.
Realistically, the most eco-friendly option of motorized transport is an e-scooter/e-bike, but that leaves you exposed to the elements, severely limits how much you can carry on a
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I can't speak for rs but for me I really care about the tire dust and any other toxic pollution, because the whole idea of breathing tires is gross. And also, I already have asthma, and don't need to exacerbate that.
What's worse, I live right on a former rail line. The rail is mostly still there, but also mostly worthless, and realistically it's not coming back except maybe if there's an extended war on US soil. And if there was light rail there, which is more or less physically possible though it certainly
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I hate driving and lately my back doesn't handle long drives. So I haven't really been going back to hang with my old peeps. Plus I miss the much better food. Big cities have shitty food unless you drive into the downtown areas and I hate the traffic there. I live out in a kind of but not quite suburb and everything around here except for one pizza joint is a freaking chain store. Blech
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You should really fix the fuel leak for your own safety. Huffing fuel isn't great for your brain.
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- they didn't have TPMS
You mean tire pressure sensors? Why not? I have a pretty basic tire pressure system on my SUV. If the pressure is within range I see nothing on the dash. If any tire is a bit low I get a small orange indicator light. If there's a sudden loss of pressure I get all kinds of lights and an alarm.
I was driving down the interstate one day and I heard an odd sound that I couldn't identify. Then the dash lit up and alarms went off. I was able to surmise quickly that I had a flat tire. I pulled over to some
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ROFLMAO
Some Slashdot users seem to have a special Slashdot expression for that: CROFLOL
I am not sure what it means exactly. I googled it to but I couldn't find anything. Anyway, I swear I have seen it used more than once here.
Anybody knows the exact meaning?
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Bad rubbish like the Porsche Taycan's that sunk the Felicity Ace in 2022.
Wait... since that has Volkswagen EV technology, does that mean all VW EV's are bad rubbish too?
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No they’re just woke and gay. /s
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No they’re just woke and gay. /s
The other day I saw a whole bunch of MAGA and other various right-wing aligned bumper stickers on, of all cars, a fuckin' Prius. I guess they figure technically, it still burns gas so they've moved up a notch on the "woke and gay" scale.
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My neighbor has a Prius with a big Cummins sticker in the back window.
Their other vehicle? A Kia EV.
Some people think California doesn't have its own redneckistans...
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Bad rubbish like the Porsche Taycan's that sunk the Felicity Ace in 2022. Wait... since that has Volkswagen EV technology, does that mean all VW EV's are bad rubbish too?
I would say yes. At that point in time, they had only sold maybe 20k to 30k of those cars. A one in 20k to 30k chance of catching fire while brand new is just sad. That's roughly Tesla's average *lifetime* self-combustion rate for vehicles, nearly all which involve a wreck, and almost none of which occurred in brand new vehicles. That's roughly two orders of magnitude too high an initial defect rate to not call them bad rubbish.
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Well, unless it was sabotage. I mean, you weren't out there when it caught fire, so you don't know why it did, and neither do any of us.
Has anyone thought to ask The Beastie Boys? [youtu.be]
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There's a retired couple in my town who had to tell everybody how virtuous they were to save the planet with their EV's and then their Volkswagen burned down their 1800's barn while charging, destroying the other EV and almost burned down their house (flame damage but saved by FD).
Billows of black smoke for half a day.
I have similar concerns with my solar batteries and need to figure something out.
Re:Better on a boat than in someone's garage (Score:4, Funny)
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Good old fashioned ‘murican cars never catch fire, right?
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As mentioned elsewhere, per 100,000 cars, ICE powered vehicles catch fire more often than EVs.
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As mentioned elsewhere should an ICEV catch fire on a ship then the compartment is sealed, often flooded with N2, and the fire burns itself out once the O2 is consumed. I assume there's sprinklers and/or fire hoses to douse the decks above and below to keep the fire from warping the deck or setting something else on fire. I saw something on this on the What's Going on With Shipping YouTube channel, I suggest people seek that out if curious for more.
A battery fire cannot be starved of oxygen as all the oxy
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Eventually, but sprinkler system on the bottom of a car which triggers early enough is apparently fast enough to stop the thermal runaway before the battery gets to the point of needing internal cooling. See EV Fire Pro.
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All the oxygen the non reduced lithium needs. Not all the oxygen everything else which burns in the battery 0and on the car needs.
The discharged part of the lithium is pre-burned already too.
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The electrolyte of NCM batteries releases oxygen when heated even below the point of actual combustion. This is part of why they have lower combustion temperatures than LFP, where this doesn't happen. NCM batteries should be outlawed because they are all of: 1) easier to cause to combust, 2) more difficult to extinguish, 3) far more toxic when burned because of the cobalt in particular, which LFPs don't use.
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Oh look, a Tesla spontaneously combusting. https://ktla.com/news/local-ne... [ktla.com]
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If these cheap EVs are going to spontaneously combust
Where does it say EVs caught fire? It only says the fire started on a deck that had EVs on it. Stats say the ICEV are far more likely to catch fire than a EV and there was 2400 ICEV on that boat with petrol in them, you know that flammable stuff.
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If these cheap EVs are going to spontaneously combust
Where does it say EVs caught fire? It only says the fire started on a deck that had EVs on it. Stats say the ICEV are far more likely to catch fire than a EV and there was 2400 ICEV on that boat with petrol in them, you know that flammable stuff.
There were 3,048 cars on that ship, 681 were hybrids and another, 70 were fully electric. The news outlets make it sound like all 3048 were electric. Some are more honest and mention the around 700 hybrids but still count these hybrids as "electric cars". I was only able to find one that actually reported the number of BEVs. Out of these the most fire prone are the Hybrids, followed by the full ICE cars and finally the BEVs which are by far the least likely to catch fire. The fire started: "in a deck carryi
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When was the last time a new ICE vehicle fire sunk a ship?
Pretty sure it has happened before but I'm too lazy to check. The bottom line here is WE DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. It could have been an EV fire, but it could have been a lot of things, and given the value of the losses do you trust the crews' reports? It is all speculation, but being reported as if it was a fact for click bait and to serve peoples' personal agendas.
Re:Better on a boat than in someone's garage (Score:5, Informative)
> When was the last time a new ICE vehicle fire sunk a ship?
Certainly more than EVs have, because to date zero cargo ship fires have been definitively attributed to EVs.
The Grande Costa D'Avorio caught fire in 2023. That one was confirmed to have been started by an ICEV.
There was also the Hoegh Xiamen in 2020 which was carrying used ICEVs, which caught fire because the 12V battery in one of them was not properly disconnected.
In 2019, the a fire broke out on the Honor damaging the cargo before being put out by the crew. The cause was determined to be the starter motor solenoid on one of the crew's personal vehicles that was being transported.
In 2015, the Courage (same US-based owner as the Honor) ended up being scrapped after a fire destroyed $40M in new vehicles and cargo. The cause was determined to have been a faulty ABS module in one of the new cars on board. (Hint: not an EV...)
Then there was the Freemantle Highway, carrying 3000 vehicles, caught fire in the North Sea. Early reports and speculation blamed one of the ~480 EVs that were on board for the fire, but during investigations they discovered that all the EVs on board were intact. AFAIK the official cause of the fire remains undetermined but it definitely was NOT one of the EVs on board as everyone sensationally claimed at the time.
The cause of the fire and ultimate sinking of Felicity Ace in 2022, despite all the speculation and lawsuits from the insurance companies, has not been positively linked to any of the handful of EVs amid thousands of ICEVs on board.
So let's see,,, total ship fires confirmed to have been caused by ICEVs: at least 4. Total fires confirmed to have been caused by EVs: zero so far. Maybe y'all will finally get lucky with this one, eh? Get the lube and tissues ready 'cause I'm sure it'll be a massive anti-EV wankfest if it happens!
=Smidge=
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Re:Better on a boat than in someone's garage (Score:4, Funny)
If your garage regularly fills with seawater, you have bigger problems to worry about.
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If your garage regularly fills with seawater, you have bigger problems to worry about.
Yeah, like needing to get the fuck out of Florida.
Re: Better on a boat than in someone's garage (Score:2)
<sneaks out quickly to read the fluff article on Microsoft, to keep my mind off the baby fishes >
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You make a powerful argument for blowing things up in the middle of the ocean. This seems to be a good time to bring up "who will think of the fish?"
[sneaks out quickly to read the fluff article on Microsoft, to keep my mind off the baby fishes ]
And the baby shark... doo doo doo doo doo doo....
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Only mention of shark in the discussion? And no mention of electrocution?
Slashdot can't find the funny no more.
Re:Better on a boat than in someone's garage (Score:5, Informative)
Take a small Lithium battery, like what you might find in a watch, and throw it into a bowl of water. It explodes and bursts into flames.
Lithium metal reacts with water.
Lithium salts, as used in lithium batteries, does not.
The only reaction a lithium battery will have when immersed in water, is electrical, like any other battery type.
The inherent danger of a lithium battery is thermal runaway. The reaction that causes the fire is self sustaining and doesn't require an external source of oxygen.
In fact, the best way to put out an EV battery fire is to use water to keep it as cool as possible until it burns itself out.
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unlike gasoline
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As much we want to love Lithium batteries and embrace electric vehicles, you can't alter the nature of Lithium. Take a small Lithium battery, like what you might find in a watch, and throw it into a bowl of water. It explodes and bursts into flames. Same thing happens when an EV is driven in an area that has flooded.
That's not really true. Most EVs have sealed packs, and should survive flooding without catching fire, though the safety fuses will self destruct to prevent extreme discharge, which means the packs will have to be opened up to repair them afterwards.
And most EVs use LiFePO4 cells, which tend to be pretty robust against thermal runaway.
So if these batteries exhibited thermal runaway, it likely means A. they're older cell chemistry for cost reasons, and B. the cells had dendrites or other manufacturing defec
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If these cheap EVs are going to spontaneously combust, better that it happen on a boat in the middle of the ocean than in someone's garage.
Yeah, the probability of an EV getting swamped with seawater "in someone's garage" is what exactly?!
Higher than you think. Vehicles drive through water all the time, and if water can get into the battery because of ocean spray, it can get in when you go through a big puddle, too. And then a few hours later, the water seeps into the right spot.... There's a reason most car manufacturers make their batteries entirely waterproof. For cars sold in the U.S., I think they're actually required to be IP66 or better.
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I thought EV batteries were supposed to be properly sealed.
I don't see how they could not be vented, as they are not 100% full of stuff and that means the air inside of them is going to be expanding and contracting with thermal cycles. A quick glance around tells me that they both have pressure vents (in case of cell failure) and selective permeability vents (e.g. from ePTFE [techbriefs.com]) which handle typical expansion and contraction venting, and try to keep moisture out.
Re:Fake news have arrived to Slashdot! (Score:4, Interesting)
Much like you will never read a news headline that reads "ICE car caught fire..." the news reports on this are going to blame the EVs without proof.
Also if you where a crew member smoking where you shouldn't be would you be saying "My bad, sorry about the ship and the 3000 cars", or would you say "It was a car, one of those EV models I think. I heard they catch fire all the time for no reason".
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Chinese EV's destined to Mexico, so ... well not really that much of a loss in the grand scheme of things, but it does hilight an important issue.
Shipping Lithium batteries is dangerous already. What should perhaps happen to reduce the risk of marine disasters from EV's is actually ship the EV's without the battery, and then final assemble and charge the battery at the destination.
These companies importing Chinese EV's though should demand better quality, because they are the ones losing money and insurance
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Shipping Lithium batteries is dangerous already. What should perhaps happen to reduce the risk of marine disasters from EV's is actually ship the EV's without the battery, and then final assemble and charge the battery at the destination.
That sounds like a lot of extra work since the cars can't be driven on to the ships and then off again. Are they expected to move them on pallets? Or tow them?
I suspect they move things of that size with regularity, aren't fully welded uni-body vehicle frames shipped in on pallets? But rarely anything on a pallet would weigh as much as an EV without the battery in such a manner, or at least I am guessing. They move heavier stuff all the time, but those are crates of some kind with defined points to att
Re:Damn (Score:5, Insightful)
Shipping Lithium batteries is dangerous already.
It's a lot less dangerous to ship them mostly discharged, like maybe at 30%.
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It's a lot less dangerous to ship them mostly discharged, like maybe at 30%.
True, but nobody wants to ship lithium batteries at any lower a SoC than they need to, because being stored at low SoC damages them permanently. When I bought my LFPs the documentation said they were shipped at a nominal 50% SoC, which the documentation also explained actually meant they were shipped at 70% SoC. The premise is that they self-discharge, and you don't want them falling too low before they are used. What if batteries (or vehicles with batteries) wind up sitting around in a port somewhere for a
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Shipping Lithium batteries is dangerous already. What should perhaps happen to reduce the risk of marine disasters from EV's is actually ship the EV's without the battery, and then final assemble and charge the battery at the destination.
That plan doesn't really seem logical unless there's some specific reason to believe that the batteries are more at risk in the cars than out of them. Otherwise, the loss is going to be just as great if a shipload of EV batteries burns as if a shipload of full EVs burns. Maybe if the batteries were not such a significant part of the cost of the vehicle it would be different. When you consider amortized risk over time, the plan you're suggesting seems more expensive. A better fire suppression system (probabl
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Roll on roll off ships will need EV specific extuingushing. The CO2 worked, but if the batteries are shorting they will still be hot enough for fire to return when oxygen returns (the thermal runaway is still there even with CO2, but unlikely to spread without open flames).
Either have (bottom) sprinklers with water recycling, or build the ship to maintain the inert atmosphere until the ship gets to port.
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Typically clickbait headline, what the real story is "Ship carrying large numbers of ICE vehicles, huge quantities of other toxic and dangerous substances, and a few hundred EVs, catches fire". Fires on ships carrying vehicles were relatively common well before EVs came along (example, the MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98, 200 ICE vehicles, around a thousand dead), but they never make the news because there are no EVs involved.
We didn't know the exact cause of the fire exactly but the article notes that "smoke was initially seen emanating from a deck carrying electric vehicles". ICE cars that aren't turned on generally don't just spontaneously combust, while the same cannot be said for EVs.
As for the MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98 incident, I don't see anything that suggests that any of the cars caught on fire. The fire was in the engine room of the boat.
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> ICE cars that aren't turned on generally don't just spontaneously combust
They absolutely do, though. In fact that's exactly what happens in the vast majority of vehicle fires that are not attributable to an accident (e.g. very recent and severe physical damage). You would probably be very alarmed at just how common and widespread safety recalls for vehicles are citing risk of fire.
On that note; https://www.ntsb.gov/investiga... [ntsb.gov]
This is a case of a car carrier ship catching fire because an ICEV, having
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