BBC Ignore Lithium Battery Fire Story
By Paul Homewood
This story has been doing the rounds in the last few days:
BERLIN/LISBON (Reuters) -A ship carrying around 4,000 vehicles, including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, that caught fire near the coast of the Azores will be towed to another European country or the Bahamas, the captain of the nearest port told Reuters on Friday.
Lithium-ion batteries in the electric cars on board the vehicle carrier Felicity Ace have caught fire and the blaze requires specialist equipment to extinguish, captain Joao Mendes Cabecas of the port of Hortas said.
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 metres above the water line," Cabecas said.
Pictures provided by the Portuguese maritime authority showed severe burns on the bow and along the 200-metre-long 200 meters (220-yard-long) side of the ship, which according to Refinitiv data was built in 2005 and can carry 17,738 tonnes of weight.
Around 1,100 Porsches and 189 Bentleys were on board, spokespeople for the car brands owned by Volkswagen said. Audi, another Volkswagen brand, confirmed some of its vehicles were also on the ship but did not state how many.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/container-ship-carrying-volkswagen-vehicles-075147126.html
Whatever the cause, once the fire spread to the batteries, there was little anybody could do to stop it.
And as the Independent reports:
Specialists will be needed to put out a raging fire on an abandoned cargo ship in the Atlantic Ocean due to complications from burning lithium-ion batteries inside the thousands of luxury cars aboard the vessel.
Experts are now going to be called out to help stop the blaze, as burning lithium-ion batteries can be difficult to stop. Lithium-ion battery fires often require dry chemicals or total flooding of the battery with water to stop.
According to a study done in 2013 by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Development, the batteries burn extremely hot and produce noxious gases.
“In the event of a lithium ion battery catching fire, it is important to note that such a fire reaches very high temperatures, produces toxic gases and is inextinguishable,” the report concluded.
Fires caused by the batteries – or which they are caught up in – have become a major concern for international shipping entities, particularly as electric vehicles become more affordable and popular among consumers.
The US Transportation Research Board funded a 2022 study noting the risks and a lack of current readiness to deal with potential fires.
Curiously however, the BBC report on the fire fails to mention the words “battery” or “electric cars” at all!
I wonder why?
Thousands of Porsche and Volkswagen cars have been abandoned on a cargo ship after it caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean en route to the US.
The ship, named Felicity Ace, was travelling from Emden in Germany before it caught ablaze off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands.
German newspaper Handelsblatt reported the vessel was carrying 3,965 vehicles, which also included Audis, Lamborghinis and a small number of Bentleys.
The ship’s crew have been rescued.
Portugal’s navy said no one was hurt by the fire, which broke out on Wednesday, and the 22 crew members were taken to a hotel after the navy, four merchant ships sailing in the area and the Portuguese Air Force completed the evacuation.
"The owner of the ship Felicity Ace is in contact with the logistic agent in order to draw up a plan for the towing of the ship," the navy said in a statement.
"So far, no source of pollution has been recorded."
According to Handelsblatt, an internal email from Volkswagen USA stated that the ship was carrying 3,965 vehicles of the VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini brands.
Volkswagen did not confirm the number of cars on board, but Porsche said it had about 1,100 of its models on the ship.
The company said it was "aware of an incident involving a third-party cargo ship transporting Volkswagen Group vehicles across the Atlantic".
Bentley confirmed that 189 of its cars were also onboard the ship.
"We are working with the shipping company to find out further information," said a spokesman.
The ship was travelling to a Volkswagen factory in Davisville, Rhode Island, according to the website Marine Traffic.
One customer tweeted to say his Porsche was on board the abandoned ship.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60429584
Meanwhile I very much doubt that you will see Roger Harrabin reporting on this either!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Bolsheviks Bu@@37ing Children ignore a lot of inconvenient facts.
It’s oft been reported that the only way to extinguish an EV battery fire is by submersion in a tank of water. So for the ship? Perhaps tow it out to the deep ocean – and sink it (submarine/air force target practice)?
‘will be towed to another European country or the Bahamas’
Port authority in Lisbon: “You want to tow a burning ship into our harbor? Permission denied! Stay the hell away from us!”
Perhaps all ships transporting electric cars should be required to have a scuttling device.
I like it!!!!!
It did mischievously cross my mind that a ‘scuttling device’ would help to preserve our electricity grid from the extra loading by these EVs 🙂
I believe that if lithium is immersed in water it produces copious quantities of hydrogen – which of course has highly inflammable, explosive tendencies – so the problem is liable to get worse.
…worse, or do you mean better 🙂
Whilst lithium metal is indeed very reactive with water, lithium ion batteries do not contain lithium metal, lithium is present as a salt – lithium carbonate or a derivative.
Fire involving lithium batteries is due to the highly flammable organic electrolyte catching fire usually following an electrical short circuit in one or more cells.
In other news, Maritime Skittles to be added to the list of Olympic sports:
https://www.fleetmon.com/maritime-news/2022/37305/bulgarian-bulk-carrier-and-maersk-tanker-pushed-wi/
Well…duh!
We have known for a long time that lithium-ion batteries in a laptop on planes were seen as an issue. E.V. car batteries are at least a hundred times bigger and there are potentially thousands of them on a ro-ro, car transport vessel.
Will the Channel Tunnel be of any use in the future: I can’t see them allowing battery powered cars, of any sort, on the train.
Currently you have to say if you’re varrying LPG gas in bottles and are not supposed to have a full fuel tank.
There have been several serious tunnel fires including two in the channel tunnel and Mont Blanc, the Mont Blanc caused 39 fatalities when a truck caught fire. The Caldecott Tunnel fire in the USA is worth reading about, a whole series of human fraitties, mistakes and bad luck,
I’m not sure any tunnel could be considered safer with 100% EVs.
Oh dearie me, what will all those woke, virtual signalling millionaires do for transport now? 🤣🤣🤣
The interesting thing here is what are the insurance companies and syndicates going to do about insuring these vessels and their lithium cargo. Will the rates go up to exorbitant levels or will they refuse cover. I have read somewhere the cargo here is valued at £150m.
How much is the ship worth as that is likely to end up as scrap.
‘Porsches, Audis and Bentleys’
I’d guess a lot more than £150m.
I read somewhere that the value of the cargo is about £500M “on the forecourt” price basis, and more like £150M “ex factory gate” cost basis.
Completely predictable new crime opportunity – EV charging cable theft.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-10530305/Now-thieves-new-target-electric-cars-charger-cable.html
With the recent power cuts, our village has suffered a number of thefts all of a sudden. The reason, these thieves are not stupid – no power, no CCTV – simples really.
From the article:
That puts up the cost of a recharge. What do you cost your time at?
So no sitting in the warmth of the services cafe, drinking your 3 serial cappuccinos whilst waiting interminably for your car to get some charge then! How to add an extra nail in the EV ‘attractiveness’ coffin in one easy lesson.
I cannot find an option to “reply” to what I have quoted further below.
Whatever your hourly rate, it seems to be ignored by those pushing EVs and claiming they are less expensive.
Refilling diesel or petrol takes ten minutes, not several hours, and you don’t have to refill petrol and diesel as often as recharging an EV.
>>recharge. What do you cost your time at?
A newish ship laden with very expensive cars, looking like a total loss. Rather a costly insurance claim —which highlights the risks involved as these EVs become more commonplace, especially with a number of these things parked together.
Not that insurers were unaware of the risk, but getting the public’s attention will enable them to set premiums accordingly. I understand that insurers currently (no pun intended) require that policies include cover against trip-hazards caused by charging cables.
—and: “Luxury cars up in smoke after ship catches fire.”
BBC spin!
Shouldn’t that read: “Ship up in smoke after luxury cars catch fire.”?
Well spotted. Please put that in a letter to the DT.
I guess the problem is that a small fire might have started on the ship itself. If it ignited even just one battery that will end up torching all the rest of the batteries because the cars are so tightly packed.
Once it spreads from the first car, it is only a matter of time before the ship is a write off. The problem was the batteries but technically the fire started on the ship. Pure conjecture of course.
“A newish ship . . .”
How does one gauge the age of ships?
Felicity Ace was built in 2005.
Also in California “the world’s biggest battery caught fire”
New vice article https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypw5x/largest-lithium-ion-battery-in-the-world-meltdown-moss-landing
Y9u would think they would have got the message by now, wouldn’t you?
The leaky ‘heat suppression system’ caused the California batteries to overheat. You couldn’t make it up.
“There is early evidence that water hoses leaked and that some batteries shorted, creating smoke in the building, similar to what we observed with the September incident at our 300-MW Phase I facility next door”.
Apparently we are currently getting a lot of our electricity from the wind. That must be why I am getting a lot of power cuts.
As any Green will tell you over the course of a year renewables supply enough electricity to meet all the country’s needs. You sceptic need to get on message /sarc
The wind giveth – and the wind taketh!
I am told by my neighbours that we are lucky here that a sub-station was put in to replace the powerlines. A few years back there was a powerline problem on the feed to our local grid.
Where do they get the idea that electric cars are more popular? Even if they were the same price as petrol and diesel equivalents, EVs are LESS practical – range problems, no manual transmissions, long recharging times even without the risk of battery fires when vehicles are stationary in car parks.. Also strange that you never see a picture of an EV with a towbar.
“Where do they get the idea that electric cars are more popular”
They did a survey at the BBC?
EV’s will be brilliant in a flood, batteries swamped, charging points under water, power cuts etc. If there are power cuts lasting a week, as has happened with the recent Atlantic Lows, aka Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, range anxiety would be mind blowing…
BBC report here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60429584
Completely failing to mention the rather important EV/battery fire issue, most people would consider a highly relevant fact.
It would appear that the wind was too strong over the weekend as they were operating well below their total capacity. These battery problems remind me of the hydrogen filled airships which were abandoned after the R101 disaster.
A lot of German cities ban EVs from underground car parks. That matters, because in Germany you don’t want to leave your car on the street overnight if you can help it. They occasionally get hailstones the size of rocks that will wreck your roof and bonnet if you are unlucky.
Just think of all that excess wind-generated electricity they now won’t need for charging all those EVs. “What excess?” I hear you ask. Well all the greenies & ecomentalists say we’ll have. I know, it’s hilarious isn’t it.
Anyone listening to the James O’Brien show this morning (Monday 21 Feb)? A more one-sided hour or two about climate matters you would be hard to find. It’s as though the IPCC and their reports simply don’t exist.
Perhaps all media channels should have an obligation to balance the views of their presenters and not just poor old Aunty BBC?
This is really frustrating. I challenged my local council on the unquestioning approval of grid-scale battery installations, eg why wasn;t the Fire Service a consultee? – “not our problem”. I’ve transferred my concerns to my MP. Every time a new story appears I send her a reminder that this is a serious issue. London Fire Brigade is worried about even electric scooter batteries, but nobody’s joining the dots. Too busy pushing “active travel” in the DfT.
A recent response from my MP:
“Whilst “X” could not claim to be a subject matter expert in battery safety she is reassured that these matters are being considered. Further she agrees with you that it is important that planning applications are asked to consider the safety of battery technology, particularly in confined spaces. This will clearly become increasingly important as we shift over to electric battery technology in response to Net Zero commitments.”
Net result. Nothing. It may take another Liverpool Car Park-style fire to get them interested.
No, it’ll take a Grenfell Tower with an underground carpark holding a load of EVs. It would only take one to go up…
The other side will say this will be solved when EVs switch to “safe chemistry” LPF batteries, like Tesla will do.
LPF? Is that “liquid petroleum fuel” by any chance?
Fire fighting outside is difficult inside a ship may be impossible. No coastal state will allow this huge and unknown hazard to come to any of their ports. The only way will be to physically sink the ship in shallow waters then salvage it. However, no coastal state will allow this to happen in their waters so I suspect the ship will conveniently sink while being towed looking for a port of refuge.
April 23, 2021: Reports of a fatal Tesla car crash that took place in Texas on April 17 say firefighters took more than four hours and 30,000 gallons of water to put out a fire caused by the lithium battery continually re-igniting.
According to the reports, the car was being driven by Tesla’s self-driving system, and there was no one in the driving seat when it crashed – instead, the two passengers were seated in the passenger seat and a rear seat. Both were killed.
My guess is they kept telling it to go faster. It hit a tree.
No! No! No! The tree moved in front of the car. The car could not avoid it.
I recognise that this suggestion doesn’t address the main issue that Li-ion batteries are inherently hazardous but here goes:
Perhaps the vehicle manufacturers should design them so that the vehicle and the batteries can be transported separately. The batteries then installed at their final destination.
And an insurance stipulation that the batteries are transported with as little charge as practical, and each in a fireproof container (although trying to design a box that can contain a lithium battery fire will be a challenge)?
I’m not sure about this low charge stipulation. I’ve got a flashlight with a Li-ion battery, and the fire hazard occurs when the charge has dropped BELOW a certain voltage, when it becomes dangerous to recharge. Most of these batteries have a safety device which stops the battery being recharged when this happens.
How long will it be before before cars powered by Li-ion batteries are found out to be powered by Li-Ar technology?
Li-Ar technology is high efficiency. Or, as some would say, “economical with the truth”.
Green tariffs are also powered directly from Li-Ar technology.
Li-Ar is the lowest cost, emissions free technology you can get and will save you money. Except when gas prices go up, and then Li-Ar costs suddenly match the cost of gas.
I suspect that it may not be just the EVs that have batteries blazing. Many cars, especially top-brand, expensive ones, have some form of hybrid propulsion system. These use smaller versions of the batteries found in pure EVs but no doubt they are just as combustible.
The point is that EVs burst into flames when they are stationary. Normal cars may or may not have a fire if they are involved in an accident with actually moving vehicles.
Only once have I encountered a story of a stationary internal combustion car bursting into flames. It was a Range Rover that had been parked for a few minutes. I don’t know if it used petrol or diesel. I kick myself for not asking.
A petrol or diesel car _might_ burst into flames if you leave it parked for several hours not in the shade in a desert in a hot country.
The graph. Is vertical axis in PoundsUK or $US?
Also there seem to be a few self destructing buses on British roads just recently. The pictures are impressive.
I read somewhere a city in Germany has ceased using EBuses.
Caption says CNY/T.
“So far, no source of polluthttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/ion has been recorded.”
They must have been carefully avoiding taking any pollution monitoring equipment anywhere near, but I think that battery fires produce a lot of rather nasty chemicals in the resulting smoke.
Lithium-ion battery fires generate intense heat and considerable amounts of gas and smoke. Although the emission of toxic gases can be a larger threat than the heat, the knowledge of such emissions is limited. This paper presents quantitative measurements of heat release and fluoride gas emissions during battery fires for seven different types of commercial lithium-ion batteries. The results have been validated using two independent measurement techniques and show that large amounts of hydrogen fluoride (HF) may be generated, ranging between 20 and 200 mg/Wh of nominal battery energy capacity. In addition, 15–22 mg/Wh of another potentially toxic gas, phosphoryl fluoride (POF3), was measured in some of the fire tests. Gas emissions when using water mist as extinguishing agent were also investigated. Fluoride gas emission can pose a serious toxic threat and the results are crucial findings for risk assessment and management, especially for large Li-ion battery packs.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/
All ships are able to close off cargo spaces automatically using fusible links or manually in order that fires can be extinguished by using CO2, water deluge, or water mist systems.
Does anyone know if Li ion batteries, during self combustion produces its own oxygen as a product of combustion or breakdown of the other gases emitted? If this is so, its no wonder suppression of a self sustaining fire is difficult or impossible.
Apparently these ships have wide-open car decks with the vehicles packed in tightly so there’s no way to screen off the one(s) which catch fire.
Yes, these fires are self-sustaining until burnt out – they don’t need air to burn. They also emit large amounts of highly toxic gases as described in the link given by Idau, above.
‘particularly as electric vehicles become more affordable and popular among consumers.’
Really? They are still much more expensive than a real car. In terms of popularity, with Covid car sales have plunged but the committed virtue-signallers are still buying and so make up a larger percentage of sales but still at a low number.
Yes. I think they should call us back when they’re talking about families with only one car, not virtue-signallers getting an extra car that happens to be an EV.
All-electric autos (EVs) have been introduced at high price points because many rich folks like the idea, may have several autos, and have enough money that price is not an object. U2’s lead vocalist owns a yacht, several estates and cars from sports to zero emission ones. What does he care if a car costs more than most people make in their lifetimes?
Also, companies need high prices to support the cost of developing the technology.
That technology has been improved amazingly during the last 10 years, and not just batteries. These too are changing – and the fire issue will be solved.
Money by the train load is being thrown at all these issues. Motor Trend magazine and others have been documenting the developments. The issues about the autos are solvable, but not yet solved.
The need for EVs, and the electricity for them, are immensely questionable.
Better if the manufacturers listened to what the market needs(petrol, diesel, LPG at normal sizes without range problems and with a choice between manual and automatic)) than what the politicians want to impose (electric city runabouts with range problems that are significanlty more expensive than normal size vehicles). The very few normal size electric vehicles that do exist still have range problems and most people would need to win a lottery to even think about buying one.. The manufacturers got it right with SUVs but have ignored the market since and let their arms be twisted by politicians.
How would you be thinking if you owned or used a luxury hotel with an underground car park?
One thing that evidently has not been thought through with all this is the possibility of nefarious acts. The same goes for the large but stupid grid scale batteries.
At least when fuel thefts started, there was an easy solution – locking petrol caps.
I have a garage attached to my house. I am never letting an electric car in there, let alone charging it there.
Given the cargo value, there must have been attention paid to fire suppression systems or shippers would not ship. Must therefore have been a battery fire.
Only moderately relevant but here it is. Weight of the battery in the top line Hummer e.v. is…..
wait for it……. 2,923 pounds.
Of course, if you are driving one of the babies you don’t care but it is definitely noteworthy.
Thinking more about that number. If you had one thousand Hummers on that ship on fire you have……2,923,000 pounds of material that is a simultaneous combination of a self sustaining, high intensity, physical fire, a chemical and an electrical fire.
Imagine the ship catching fire while at dock and the lieutenant fire officer in charge of a couple of fire trucks on the dock and a couple harbor fire boats saying…..WTF, what do you expect me to do about that?!!??
An battery Hummer! Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?!
Apparently, they are designed to be very fast and powerful but abysmally inefficient with a very short range given the size of the battery. Sort of like the gas versions but even more expensive.
It is worse than contradiction in terms. It is sacrilege to make a Hummer less practical by replacing a proper engine with a much heavier battery. Same goes for any other make and model.
Some might say it’s a sacrilege to make a Hummer!!
Where are the green environmentalists worried about gas emissions and perhaps sea pollution as the ship sinks?…..if the ship gets to port, how will all those batteries be safely removed from the melted cars and recycled?
Disneyland has always had trouble dealing with storing old batteries left over from the parades inside the floats. They had warehouses with those batteries inside, probably still do, where else is there , and they would spontaneously catch fire but I’m sure they have ways of extinguishing them before they get out of control. Yes, “Green” is indeed a fantasy
They should have used the older, but tried, tested, and reusable, sealed lead-acid car/truck batteries.
The ship is still burning:
https://gcaptain.com/felicity-ace-response-stretches-into-second-week-as-fire-continues-to-burn/?subscriber=true&goal=0_f50174ef03-a3bcfc7f08-170410014&mc_cid=a3bcfc7f08&mc_eid=9275323244
I see the report is still disconnecting the fire from the EVs on board. I doubt a ‘normal’ fire would have lasted so long, and been extinguished very quickly.