This is crazy. Not only have there been tons of ships lost to vehicle fires.... nobody has yet said "stop putting batteries/fuel in these janky-ass vehicles you're shipping". Are they <i>trying</i> to lose these ships?
> The Morning Midas had departed Yantai, China on May 26 and was heading to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico<p>What is it doing 300 miles south of Adak, Alaska? (Yes I understand the curvature of the earth vs map projections causes the shortest route to appear to be a curve rather than a straight line). This should be passing within a few hundred miles of Hawaii, not Alaska, right?<p>Are these things incapable of sailing in open ocean? Do they always stay within a few days sail of land?
More information (Video) : <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFhhvr_afws" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFhhvr_afws</a>
I wonder if this changes the calculus for shipping cars with 80% charged batteries. (Even given that many of the fires in the article were not ev related).
If this continues, will maritime insurance keep paying out for these total losses? It seem untenable.<p>Some thoughts: 1) drain almost all the gasoline from vehicles so that if there is a fire, the fuel is limited.<p>2) for battery EVs, other than disconnecting the batteries, I dont see a way to make them safer for transit.<p>If we wanted to limit the spread of Chinese EVs globally, one way would be for shipping companies to tax EVs heavily for sea transport so that fires would be covered by the increased transport costs.