Disaster Ship Carrying EVs Abandoned in Pacific After Catching Fire - A ship carrying about 3,000 cars to Mexico was abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after catching fire Tuesday.

Car-carrying ship Morning Midas in 2020.
Photographer: Sam Croft/MarineTraffic

A ship carrying about 3,000 cars to Mexico was abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after catching fire Tuesday.

Smoke was first seen coming from a deck on the Morning Midas that was carrying electric vehicles, the ship’s manager Zodiac Maritime said in a statement. It has about 800 EVs on board.

The crew initiated firefighting procedures but the blaze could not be brought under control, it added.

The US Coast Guard evacuated all 22 crew members, transferring them to a nearby merchant ship. The Coast Guard said earlier it was sending aircrews and a vessel toward the ship where crew had been actively fighting a blaze.

Zodiac confirmed that responders are being deployed to support salvage and firefighting operations. The ship departed the Chinese port of Yantai on May 26.


Morning Midas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Source: Bloomberg

Car-carrying ships haul thousands of vehicles at a time across the world’s oceans.

In recent years, there have been a handful of significant blazes involving vessels hauling electric vehicles, prompting concerns that the batteries inside those cars can catch light and lead to significant disasters.

Such incidents can have major ramifications for the companies that make the cars and shipowners alike, as well as for their insurers.

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.

Shipowners have also taken steps to try and manage the safety risks involved in hauling electric vehicles.

Last year, a key safety group published guidelines on how to deal with fires on board the vessels.

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[Vesperus]

Rate me dumb, but why transport the cars with the batteries installed then?

and then what is to stop the separate lithium battery shipment setting on fire anyway

You've answered your own question, I think. If we assume every battery pack has the same chance of going fizz-bang, all you're doing is increasing the likelihood of a fire on any one trip, and making the unstoppable turbo-fire bigger.

The nightmare I have is about northern waters, it’s quite detailed. EVs are a plague

Ferries go glug often enough as it is. On the odd occasion I take one, I lurk as near to the liferafts as possible and the notion of sleeping on one is unthinkable.

 

[Google.com]

Ship status: Well done

 

[The Nothingness]

Even the cars don't want to be sent to Mexico.

 

[urr13 account]

Hopefully this will be good for the environment.

 

[Google.com]

Ship status: Damp

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Cargo ship carrying 3,000 new vehicles sinks off Alaska weeks after catching fire​

Source: CBS Archive: Archive.ph

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A cargo ship that had been delivering new vehicles to Mexico sank in the North Pacific Ocean, weeks after crew members abandoned ship when they couldn't extinguish an onboard fire that left the carrier dead in the water.

The Morning Midas sank Monday in international water off Alaska's Aleutian Islands chain, the ship's management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said in a statement.

"There is no visible pollution," said Petty Officer Cameron Snell, an Alaska-based U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson. "Right now we also have vessels on scene to respond to any pollution."

The Coast Guard said that the vessel reportedly had 350 metric tons of marine gas oil and 1,530 metric tons of very low sulfur fuel oil onboard.
Fire damage compounded by bad weather and water seepage caused the carrier to sink in waters about 16,400 feet deep and about 415 miles from land, the statement said.


The ship was loaded with about 3,000 new vehicles intended for a major Pacific port in Mexico. It was not immediately clear if any of the cars were removed before it sank, and Zodiac Maritime did not immediately respond to messages Tuesday.

A salvage crew arrived days after the fire disabled the vehicle.

Two salvage tugs containing pollution control equipment will remain on scene to monitor for any signs of pollution or debris, the company said. The crew members of those two ships were not injured when the Morning Midas sank.

"The safety of the responders remains our top priority," Capt. Christopher Culpepper, the commander of Coast Guard Sector Western Alaska and U.S. Arctic, said in a statement. "We're working closely with Zodiac Maritime in an advisory capacity to ensure a swift and effective response to any potential signs of pollution."


Zodiac Maritime said it is also sending another specialized pollution response vessel to the location as an added precaution.

The Coast Guard said it received a distress alert June 3 about a fire aboard the Morning Midas, which then was roughly 300 miles southwest of Adak Island.

There were 22 crew members onboard the Morning Midas. All evacuated to a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby merchant marine vessel. There were no injuries.

Among the cars were about 70 fully electric and about 680 hybrid vehicles. A large plume of smoke was initially seen at the ship's stern coming from the deck loaded with electric vehicles, the Coast Guard and Zodiac Maritime said at the time.

Adak is about 1,200 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.

The 600-foot Morning Midas was built in 2006 and sails under a Liberian flag. The car and truck carrier left Yantai, China, on May 26 en route to Mexico, according to the industry site marinetraffic.com.

A Dutch safety board in a recent report called for improving emergency response on North Sea shipping routes after a deadly 2023 fire aboard a freighter that was carrying 3,000 automobiles, including nearly 500 electric vehicles, from Germany to Singapore.


One person was killed and others injured in the fire, which burned out of control for a week. That ship was eventually towed to a Netherlands port for salvage.

 

[TowinKarz]

"There is no visible pollution,"

Key word: visible.

sails under a Liberian flag

There's the real pollution - globalized shipping.

 

[sadrefrigerator]

Because pulling the battery is like pulling the engine on a r.egular combustion vehicle.

Engines are designed to be pulled. Most engines can be removed in multiple directions, and someone experienced with the platform can have it out in a couple hours.
Ev batteries are not designed to be removed. Every car is designed to compact as much battery as possible. Service is not part of the design. Even if you manage to remove the batteries, it is impractical to put the car back together.

thought we were going to have battery swapping capability at some point? That way consumers could "fill up" in just minutes, not hours

This was never a possibility. Anyone claiming it was did no research into the topic, or are purposely lying.