It is about time somebody stood up to this issue.
If the carriers have an issue, Then maybe the MFG’s will stop looking at money and change the force feeding of EVs.
Are you implying the people buying EV’s don’t really want to?
Who’s force feeding them? Before everyone blamed libs but not republicans are all about them bc of Elon.
If the moneys there companies will carry them. Everyone said no after the first ship sank in the Atlantic, then they saw the price tag and said fuck it we’ll take them.
Will ARC ever refuse EV’s?
Yes force feeding;
Mexifornia was trying to mandate it.
Mass news media covers EV issues very little.
When a ship catches fire, EV are never mentioned if not the whole event.
The public is shielded from the info that driving over a water puddle may cause the EV car to catch fire. Here in Florida, a common issue.
Ever notice not many for lease?
What?? The last three RORO’s that sank they said it was from EV’s?
Idk where in Florida you live but I sure as shit don’t see EV’s catching fire for running over a puddle where I’m at.
I live in Seattle. Probably the highest proportion of EV cars in the nation. And the rainiest city. Never heard of this issue. Where are you getting this from?
Isn’t it the other way around?
Whenever there is a fire onboard a PCTC, RoRo or RoPax with any Evs onboard, it appears to be ALWAYS assumed that the EVs are the cause of the fire.
When proven otherwise it is no longer news and gets very little if any mentioning in the media.
The problem is more that WHEN there is a fire involving EVs it is much harder to extinguish by conventional means (i.e. CO2, foam or even water flooding)
Hence the instruction to abandon ship, rather than stay to fight the fire.
The problem is thus that effective means to extinguish an EV fire is not yet available on the ships that carry them, nor readily available to install on ships.
Alternatively; develop batteries that is not as difficult to extinguish if they catch fires.
That is surprising. There must be something wrong with the EVs in Florida.
Here in Norway we have the greatest density of EV per capita in the world.
We also have frequent rain, snow and ice, and the roads are not always the best.
Yet without having EV bursting into flame everywhere.
PS> We also have a large number of electric RoPax ferries that carries all those EVs across fjords and along the coast, but somehow there doesn’t appear to be a major problem with EV fires, neither on the ferries nor on the roads.
My Teslas never burst into flames and here in Fort Lauderdale half the town floods regularly and I have to drive through a lot of puddles.
I just drove from Florida to Maine on I-95 (and back) and saw more fresh car fire scars than I could count but the Tube is sorely lacking videos of flaming EVs filmed by every other car that has a dashcam. Sounds like some EV derangement syndrome to me.
I am looking forward to Toyota’s water/hydrogen engine.
I think I and a shit load of other peeps have said this until we are blue in the face.
I don’t think EV s are more vulnerable to fires than ICE s
The problem is how to put the bastard’s out.
How do you put fire out on a Lithium battery ferry?
Answer
You don’t.
I went through this when my company commissioned the first hybrid pilot boat in the UK .
If there is a fire then the only, did you hear that ONLY option is to sink the boat and let it burn out.
So if you have just half a dozen EV s on a car carrier and one of those, no any car catches fire then your ship is toast
I’m sure that shipping companies will assess the risk and do what makes them the most money.
Sod the poor bastard’s that have to deal with the fire.
This is a first world problem which is dealt with by third world sailors.
Who gives a F##k
Just as long as us first world folk can lecture on saving the planet.
Simplified,
RISK = (incident probability) X (incident severity)
thus, even if EV fires are less frequent than combustion engine vehicle fires, which they actually seem to be, as long as a cluster of EV batteries onboard a ship, all the more so in confined environments that impede monitoring (i.e. containers, as with Matson’s car transports) may result in runaway scenarios that lead to total loss, restrictive risk management seems well warranted.
The situation should be a wake up call for industry to develop procedures and technologies for reducing the risk of bulk lithium battery transport, storage and installation. And all of this within an accelerated timeframe, not along the customary 10 year plus timeline of IMO deliberations and implementations.
Adapting fire fighting technologies, containment, compartmentization, load spacing etc. will most probably lead to costly retrofitting and/or more complex procedures that will impact commercial bottom lines. Thus, until it becomes mandatory, change is unlikely to happen as long as some carriers deem the overall risk to be ‘acceptable’.
One might be grateful to Matson for pushing the issue onto the agenda. I would not be surprised, if, in the end, solutions will be driven by requirements from the insurance sector.
The description of the potential of a total loss for Matson is literally existential. So little remains of the American deep sea fleet that loss of one ship and possibly an entire company is too great. How about a tug and a battery barge if EVs are that important to Hawaii.
Most new EVs for Hawaii will likely be delivered by car ships from Asia.
As said earlier, the solution may be new battery technology
Work are in progress:
https://saft.com/en/media-resources/our-stories/three-battery-technologies-could-power-future
Another alternative is a different clean source of energy small enough to power PVs, vans and trucks etc. Hydrogen has been mentioned as a possibility:
Any other suggestions?
Oh my God.
Third world sailors…Us first world folk. Kinda vocabulary from the early 70s .
No Sir, - stiff upper lip.
There is “global south” , mid european peasants and of course Global North .
Sir , You are in dire need to update your vocabulary
Probably