A large fire on a ship carrying 3,784 new cars from off the coast of the Netherlands last month was unlikely caused by an electric vehicle (EV), says the boss of the salvage company handling the wreck.
The Fremantle Highway, a Panama-flagged car and truck carrier chartered by K Line, was en route to Singapore from Bremerhaven in Germany when it caught fire on July 25.Â
Speculation widely blamed one of the 498 EVs on board after an employee of the ship owner, Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha which also owned the 2021 Suez Canal-blocker Ever Given container ship, initially suggested an EV might be the culprit.
However, between 900 and 1000 cars including the EVs appeared to be in good condition, the chief of salvage company Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, Peter Berdowski, told media last week.Â
The fire probably started in the eighth deck of the 12 deck-ship as that is where the worst damage is, Berdowski told Bloomberg.Â
Berdowksi himself fanned the flames by saying “all experts with any knowledge on this topic agree that the transportation of electric vehicles introduces additional risks”.
Boskalis-owned Smit Salvage and Multraship were contracted to handle the salvage operation.
The cause of the fire is still unknown.Â
The fire led to one death and the crew, 21 Indian nationals, needed to be rescued by helicopter and lifeboats, before the ship was towed to the Eemshaven port in northeastern Netherlands.Â
Still not the cause
The Fremantle Highway isn’t the first time a ship fire has been blamed on EVs.
The Felicity Ace caught fire in 2022 and a year later the cause of the blaze that sent the ship 10,000 feet under the sea was still unknown.
However, a comment by captain Joao Mendes Cabecas in a Reuters story that the lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles were ‘keeping the fire alive’ put EVs front and centre of the disaster.
The first and to date only proven EV fire at sea was caused by a converted Qashqai car charging on a car ferry.
Although ship fires are feared by marine insurers and shippers generally, EVs aren’t a major worry, said the International Union of Marine Insurance following the Fremantle Highway fire.Â
“To date, no fire onboard a roro or Pure Car and Truck Carrier (PCTC) has been proven to have been caused by a factory-new EV,” the organisation said in a statement.
“IUMI understands that the transportation of EVs raises certain risks that are different to those involved in carrying internal combustion engine vehicles but research suggests that the risks are not heightened or more dangerous.“
Scary but rare
EV fires have become a cause celebre among the kind of people who need a reason to dislike electric vehicles.Â
These types of fires, which burn extremely hot and due to the contained energy in the battery can restart after it looks like it’s out, can be extremely difficult to put out for firefighters who don’t have appropriate equipment or training yet.Â
But data is emerging that shows they’re also less likely to happen than fires in internal combustion cars.Â
Data from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) shows EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire than petrol and diesel cars, with 23 EV fires in 2022 from the country’s fleet of 611,000 EVs, or a rate of 0.004 per cent.
Over the same period, some 3,400 fires were reported in Sweden’s 4.4 million petrol and diesel cars, representing 0.08 per cent of the fossil car fleet.
Australian group evfiresafe keeps an ongoing tally of EV fires and as of June 30, had verified 393 battery fires globally since 2010.
Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.