Fire on Cargo Ship Carrying Chinese Electric Vehicles Leads to $560 Million Loss

According to foreign media reports, the Morning Midas cargo ship, which caught fire on June 3 and sank 20 days later, is expected to result in a loss of $560 million for shippers and the industry, as estimated by the Anderson Economic Group. At the time of the fire, the cargo ship was carrying 3,048 Chinese vehicles bound for Mexico, including electric cars from companies like Chery and Great Wall Motors. Zodiac Maritime, the ship management company, reported that smoke first appeared on the deck of the cargo ship. The U.S. Coast Guard data indicates that the cargo included about 750 pure electric and hybrid vehicles. The cause of the fire is still undetermined. The Anderson Economic Group noted that this is the third significant incident involving a severely damaged or sunken electric vehicle transport ship in over three years, with previous incidents being the Felicity Ace in February 2022 and the Fremantle in July 2023, totaling an estimated loss of $1.8 billion across the three incidents. Patrick Anderson, CEO of the group, stated to Automotive News that the estimate does not include downstream business losses, medical expenses, ship replacement costs, and environmental remediation plans. He remarked, "This is a huge loss and once again serves as a wake-up call to the industry: transporting electric vehicles in closed containers carries significant risk." Captain Randall Lund, a senior marine risk advisor at Allianz Commercial, pointed out that transporting electric vehicles always carries risks of fire, explosion, or thermal runaway. Even if the fire is not caused by an electric vehicle, the presence of electric vehicles can exacerbate the severity of fires. Once a fire occurs, crew members often find themselves helpless. Lund stated, "Crew members are not professional firefighters." Although all crew members have received basic firefighting training, the training is too general, and responding to electric vehicle fires typically requires specialized firefighting knowledge. Most crew members are not even aware of the specific locations of electric vehicles on board. Lund suggested that optimizing fire monitoring systems and increasing spacing between electric vehicles might help control fires, but this all relies on having enough crew members to carry out the necessary actions. However, as ship tonnage continues to increase, the number of crew members has not risen correspondingly. He emphasized, "This is a daunting task." He also stated that the transportation industry needs to collaborate with automakers to make them realize that "it may not be feasible to transport 400 electric vehicles at once, and cargo ships should allocate more space for electric vehicles."