Overview of the Fremantle Highway freighter // Photograph by the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
If the cause of the Fremantle Highway freighter fire off the coast of the Netherlands has not yet been formalized, the track of electric vehicles is beginning to be ruled out. The Dutch media have just reported the experts’ analysis following new inspections that took place on August 11, 2023.
A few weeks ago, the haters, anti-electric vehicles of all kinds and much of the media rushed into the breach. With several electric vehicles on board, it seemed “ obvious that one of them was the cause of the Fremantle Highway fire. New expert reports show that the fire that ravaged this large ship carrying 3,784 new cars on board was probably not caused by an electric car.
The track of the electric vehicle is gradually being ruled out
The boat was en route to Singapore from Bremerhaven in Germany. It caught fire on July 25, 2023. The fire killed one person and the survivors had to be rescued by helicopter and lifeboats. Initially, the rumor came from an employee of the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the shipowner who also owns the container ship Ever Given (the ship that blocked the Suez Canal in 2021). Without any evidence, the man suggested “ that an electric vehicle could be the cause of the fire “.
The fire a priori declared on the eighth deck of the ship, according to Peter Berdowski, boss of the salvage company Royal Boskalis Westminster, the one who took care of the wreck. Between 900 and 1000 cars, including electric vehicles, appear to be in good condition. Berdowski himself said that ” all experts with knowledge on the subject agree that transporting electric vehicles presents additional risks “.
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Currently docked in Eemshaven, the Netherlands, the freighter is revealing its first secrets. Although the exact cause of the fire is still unknown, the electric car theory no longer holds. The recent inspection of the Fremantle Highway showed that the lower decks are virtually intact and that the containers in which the electric vehicles were stored are in good condition. Words taken from a statement by Peter Berdowski, reported by the Australian media The Driven.
On the other hand, the man explains that the upper points, on which there were no electric cars, “ are so damaged that it is difficult to walk there “. The cars there are downright ” welded to the ground “. What put electric cars almost out of the question. Experts continue to work to determine the precise origin of the fire. Moreover, according to theInternational Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI), “ electrified vehicles are not a major concern “.
Electric vehicles are 20 times less likely to catch fire than thermal ones
In reality, the fire caused by an electric vehicle is similar to the myth. Only one fire on board a ship has been officially attributed to an electrified model, it is a ferry that caught fire because of a Qashqai which was charging on board. The IUMI states that ” our research has shown that the risks for transporting electric vehicles are not increased or more dangerous than for internal combustion vehicles “.
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Recent data from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency even show that electric vehicles would be “ 20 times less likely to catch fire than petrol or diesel cars “. The agency counts 23 electric model fires in 2022 out of a national fleet of 611,000 vehicles, a rate of 0.004%. Over the same period, Swedish researchers recorded 3,400 fires out of the 4.4 million thermal cars recorded in Sweden, representing a risk of 0.08%.
In 2022, the Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) had also proven that combustion-powered cars were ten times more likely to suffer a fire than electric ones. Unfortunately, the fires of electric models have been more documented than those of thermal ones. Blaming electric cars for causing fires has become common practice in recent years.
