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Power Transportation

Losses Estimated at $334M For Cargo Ship Fire, as Lithium-Ion Batteries Burned More Than a Week (qz.com) 73

Posted by EditorDavid from the smoke-on-the-water dept.
"Volkswagen AG has lost hope that many of its roughly 4,000 vehicles aboard a cargo ship that caught fire last week in the Atlantic can be saved," Bloomberg reported Friday, citing estimates that the total cargo loss for the Felicity Ace could exceed a third of a billion dollars.

"The blaze is believed to have lasted more than a week after the Panama-flagged ship's crew members were evacuated and it was left adrift." VW's Golf compact cars and ID.4 electric crossovers were among the vehicles aboard the ship, according to an internal email last week from the automaker's U.S. operation. Headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, the group manufactures cars under brands including VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini — all of which were on the ship.
Earlier this week Qz.com argued that the fire was being fueled by lithium-ion batteries. Slashdot reader McGruber shared their report: It's not clear if the batteries contributed to the fire starting in the first place — a greasy rag in a lubricant-slicked engine room or a fuel leak are the usual suspects in ship fires — but the batteries are keeping the flames going now.

A forensic investigation will take months to determine the cause. [Last] Saturday, João Mendes CabeÃas, captain of the port of Faial, the nearest Azorean island, told Reuters that the batteries in the ship's cargo are "keeping the fire alive...." Large quantities of dry chemicals are needed to smother lithium ion battery fires, which burn hotter and release noxious gases in the process. Pouring water onto the Felicity Ace wouldn't put out a lithium-ion battery fire, CabeÃas told Reuters, and the added water weight could make the ship more unstable.

Electric vehicle fires are rare, but pose their own kind of flammability risk, and one that becomes heightened as EVs go mainstream. Large numbers of EVs grouped together, as when they are transported by cargo ship, or electric buses parked in an overnight lot, raise the risk that one flaming battery could ignite a chain reaction in adjacent batteries. According to a research proposal at the National Academy of Sciences' Transportation Research Board, "Lithium-ion battery fire risks are currently undermanaged in transit operations."

There have been more than 35 large lithium-ion battery fires since 2018, Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium fires, told the Financial Times, including a 13-ton Tesla megapack storage battery in Victoria Australia that burned for three days. An electric ferry in Norway caught fire in 2019, and in April 2021, a battery fire at a Beijing mall killed two firefighters.

In addition, car-carrying ships and ferries can face higher risks from fires, according to insurer Allianz Global's head of marine risk. Due to the internal areas not being divided to make it easier to transport cars, when a fire starts it can spread more easily.
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Losses Estimated at $334M For Cargo Ship Fire, as Lithium-Ion Batteries Burned More Than a Week More

Losses Estimated at $334M For Cargo Ship Fire, as Lithium-Ion Batteries Burned More Than a Week

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  • It used to be the Springfield Tire Fire [fandom.com]. How far we've come!
    • 4000 cars, $344,000,000.00. Thatâ(TM)s $$86,000.00 per car. Seems on the high side unless most were electric.

      • Headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, the group manufactures cars under brands including VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini — all of which were on the ship.

        Low side, actually.

      • Also damage to the ship and shipping containers.

      • 4000 cars, $344,000,000.00. Thatâ(TM)s $$86,000.00 per car. Seems on the high side unless most were electric.

        There's a lot of Lambos, Porsche's and Bentleys on the ship.

        "Volkswagen AG has lost hope that many of its roughly 4,000 vehicles aboard a cargo ship that caught fire last week in the Atlantic can be saved"

        IOW they've figured out that the insurance will pay up so why bother making an effort?

        • The difference being that the insurance is probably set to cover the cost, not the price. Getting insurance to repay the cost of manufacturing keeps them in business, but no profits.

          • Minus pretty whopping deductible. In other words, it would reduce loss not eliminate it. And that doesn't even count loss due to market opportunity damage.

  • cheating on pollution. F U V W !

    • Literally every major automaker has done emissions cheating at some point. Literally every German major automaker did diesel emissions cheating with Bosch's help at the same time.

  • They're undermanaged in everything right now, because we don't have that many of lithium powered vehicles, while having a lot of ICE powered. And of the lithium powered vehicles in use, most have very small batteries (i.e. hybrids).

    It's something that will have to change in firefighting across the board. How to finance the specialist chemicals becoming mainstream in firefighting and specialist transportation and application hardware is going to be a big question in a decade or two when this problem will bec

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Why don't they ship the vehicles separate from the batteries?

      • In most EVs, the batteries are built into the vehicle, often under the floor to keep the center of gravity low.

        A simpler solution is to ship the batteries with about a 30% charge. They are much less flammable when undercharged.

        • A simpler solution is to ship the batteries with about a 30% charge. They are much less flammable when undercharged.

          That is already the rule in air transport. See ICAO DGR [iata.org]. This was learned the hard way on occasion of UPS Flight 6 [wikipedia.org] and similar accidents. But why should naval transport learn from air transport? Humans tend to make their own mistakes before they learn anything. Why learn from others – so far all went well with rules developed for ICE powered cars.

  • lol (Score:2)

    by nyet ( 19118 )

    EV fanboys still don't get energy density/specific energy

  • Who won't get their precious carriages. Think of the children!

    • An EV is a bit more expensive than an equivalent ICE, but often has a lower TCO, especially with gas prices rising thanks to Putin.

      The market for used EVs is growing.

      EVs aren't just for rich people anymore.

      • but often has a lower TCO

        True, oddly enough, everywhere except the US where EVs have a consistently higher TCO than gasoline vehicles in mid-term (7 year) and low-mileage cases, for reasons I'm having trouble comprehending.
        And even weirder, the TCO for luxury EVs are consistently higher than the TCO for luxury gas cars after the first 3 years, worldwide. Also for reasons I'm having trouble comprehending.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jzanu ( 668651 )
          It is possible that the people who buy luxury EV simply take better care of their cars and spend more money to do so. If given regular fueled cars, it is possible that their costs would be higher anyway. If they then buy EV instead, it lowers the regular fueled cars total cost and increases the EV cost of ownership. The other issue you raised is more complicated. Why, after a short number of years is EV cost higher when there is low mileage? The differential costs of maintenance over time may simply occur

        • True, oddly enough, everywhere except the US where EVs have a consistently higher TCO than gasoline vehicles in mid-term (7 year) and low-mileage cases, for reasons I'm having trouble comprehending.

          The "low mileage" case isn't difficult to comprehend.

          • How do you figure?
            Do most of your cars sit there and collect problems as you don't use them?

            • Do most of your cars sit there and collect problems as you don't use them?

              I have an EV. It is less of an economic benefit than before the pandemic.

              Pre-pandemic, I WFHed 2:3 (two days home, three at the office).

              I now WFH 4:1 (four days at home, one at the office).

              So I am driving it about a third as often.

              • Sure, but that doesn't explain anything.
                The question was about relative TCO.

                How does the TCO increase vs. a gasoline car if driven less, and only in the US?

        • the TCO for luxury EVs are consistently higher than the TCO for luxury gas cars after the first 3 years, worldwide

          Most luxury cars are owned by old people who take few long trips without their RV. They are also mostly owned by people with more money than they know what to do with. This is why it doesn't matter to primary sales that for example your average flagship luxury car starts to have expensive problems after a few years. The owners only keep them for 2-4 years and then get rid of them and get another one, and the problems become someone else's problem (which is why I see so many field workers driving Audis and B

        • One reason the TCO gap is worse in America is low gasoline taxes.

          Americans love cheap gas. Hopefully, that will change as more voters drive EVs.

          • Sure, but we have cheap power too.
            The TCO isn't worse, it's reversed.
            In the US, there are several situations where it's actually cheaper to own a gas car. Nowhere else in the world is that true- minus the luxury car 4+ year metric.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nyet ( 19118 )

      You understand as energy densities approach hydrocarbon chains in batteries, you'll basically be transporting bombs?

  • "Electric vehicle fires are rare" Is that why Bolt owners are warned not to park their vehicles near other vehicles or in garages due to the extreme risk of them spontaneously catching fire just sitting there? Would be nice if we could get biased and mostly error free articles. Sadly most people have an opinion that drives their thinking, not the other way around.

    • Re:"Electric vehicle fires are rare" hahahahahahah (Score:5, Informative)

      by jmintha ( 56956 ) on Sunday February 27, 2022 @04:18AM (#62308015) Homepage

      Out of approximately 200,000 car fires, only 52 were EVs. (https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs-electric-car-fires/) I would call that rare. Yes, there are less EVs, but based on miles driven, EVs are 10 times less likely to catch fire.

      And yes 140,000 Bolt vehicles were recalled because of risk of fire, but there were only 16 actually fires. The year before Hyundai recalled 430,000 gas car because of risk of fire.

    • Is that why Bolt owners are warned not to park their vehicles near other vehicles or in garages due to the extreme risk of them spontaneously catching fire just sitting there?

      No, a manufacturing fault which triggered a recall is why Bolt owners have to do that. Nothing to do with EV fires in a general sense.

      In other news Kia and Hyandai recently told the owners of the very much non-EV K900s, Tuscan SUVs, and Santa Fes to also not park their cars indoor https://eu.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]

      Would be nice if we could get biased and mostly error free articles.

      It would be nice if we could get intelligent posts, but sadly I think Slashdot is beyond that these days with even those with sub million UIDs posting complete and utter nonsense. Those are the ti

  • "Volkswagen AG has lost hope that many of its roughly 4,000 vehicles aboard a cargo ship that caught fire last week in the Atlantic can be saved,"

    Why would they want dirty, contaminated cars to sell at a loss?

    No insurance?

  • All burning together or burning at random times across the world. VW should have just stuck to making quality vehicles lols. In there race to save some money they've really burned their image this time.

    • VW should have just stuck to making quality vehicles lols

      I presume the lols is for the idea that they've ever made mostly quality vehicles? Because that's an absurd myth. Even at the height of their engineering superiority they didn't use enough corrosion protection. Kind of like Mercedes today. Fucking Sprinter rust.

  • "Pouring water onto the Felicity Ace wouldn't put out a lithium-ion battery fire, CabeÃas told Reuters, and the added water weight could make the ship more unstable."

    Right, water won't put the fire out. What it CAN do, though, is keep the batteries that are not already on fire from being compromised and adding to the flames. This is why copious amounts of water is the recommended method of controlling lithium battery fires - not to extinguish, but to contain.

    Being on a boat is the bigger problem, but I

    • Re:Should have used water (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday February 27, 2022 @08:48AM (#62308343) Homepage Journal

      Water on a lithium battery fire can indeed put it out, by cooling the battery below the ignition temperature. However, it might reignite when it warms up again.

      The bigger problem is that the ship's integrity has been compromised so you don't want to attach another ship to it in case it sinks. And just being near a sinking ship is dangerous because of what the escaping air does to the ocean you're floating on. So even if they put some of the fires out, there would still be more fires. In order to remove the non-burned cars they have to go in and identify them in the middle of a fire, they have to sidle up to the ship, they have to attach to it in a way that's easily disconnected, they have to have time to get away if it sinks, and oh yeah, everyone has to be wearing SCBA because of the emissions from the lithium fires.

      Meanwhile it takes a shitload of water to put out a lithium battery fire, because the batteries have to be cooled. And as they say, just spraying that much water onto the ship could sink it.

      There is frankly likely nothing they can do in order to rescue this vessel or its contents, or even stop all of it from sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The time to stop this from happening was before it happened, not now. Now, it's too late.

      This might be an argument against permitting so many lithium battery automobiles from being shipped together, or with batteries installed, etc. Yes, I know there are good technical reasons why it's harder to install the batteries later. That's also a good technical reason why the vehicles should be assembled in/near the countries where they're being delivered, instead of shipped fully assembled across oceans where this kind of problem can arise.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        It might help if they would revive the apparently lost art of designing for repairability so it wouldn't be so hard to install the batteries later. It would make good sense since battery replacement is the single most expensive maintenance on an electric car over it's lifetime and all will need it eventually. The batteries themselves are only part of why that procedure is outrageously expensive.

        • It's a balancing act between cost and performance. The batteries are heavy no matter what. In order to offset this drawback they want to put the batteries into cases which can serve as structural elements, so that the mass is working for them in some way other than just lowering CG — which is nice but frankly not essential, as the auto companies have all figured out how to get good handling even though the longitudinal axis of the vehicle's mass is not parallel to the ground, except maybe in some few

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            With a little care, the bottom of the battery box could be a platform sufficient to hold the batteries while being jacked down, leaving the sides and top of the compartment. If necessary, access points on the floor board could allow for vertical supports to be bolted up. Important safety tip, do not drive your electric vehicle and get in an accident with the battery pack removed :-)

            I have seen the procedure for changing out hybrid batteries and it was most definitely excessively difficult due to poor design

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gawbl ( 941021 )
        Dumb Question:
        What if they shipped with EVs with mostly-discharged batteries? Would that cut down on the intensity of any fires?

    • Salt water is electrically conductive, I wonder if that could have made the problem worse.

    • " What it CAN do, though, is keep the batteries that are not already on fire from being compromised and adding to the flames. "

      Which is the same logic as warships flooding their magazines.

      Question though, are the EVs shipped with charged batteries? Or do they just have the non-aqueous electrolytes and lithium burning?

      • EVs are shipped with partially charged batteries. Normally this is below 30%, in a prior incident they were shipped with 50% charge which was still too much. Sadly though lithium batteries degrade when stored at anything other than somewhere between 50-80% charge depending on their chemistry, and also have internal self-discharge so you have to plan for that as well.

      • There's almost no lithium in lithium-ion batteries. It's the electrolyte that's burning.

        EV battery packs are water tight if they're not damaged. Cars in general are already expected to get wet, and being mounted to the underside of the car it's kind of obvious that you'd expect a battery to end up wet or entirely underwater at some point. They're built for it... again, as long as the casing isn't compromised.

        But they're not heat proof, so if they get too hot the electrolyte boils and the pressure vents, blo

  • I kind of wonder if the vehicle decks on these ships could be sealed and purged with argon or nitrogen in transit.

  • More evidence that the EV batteries should be designed as removable/replaceable units and shipped separately to be mated with the vehicle when it's NOT packed tightly in a place without sufficient fire suppression capabilities.

    Easily replaceable battery packs would also make possible the leased battery business model... don't wait for a recharge, just quickly swap batteries at the service station.

  • "Wait, you mean VW makes Porsche AND Lamborghini???"

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