How Three Specific Fires Could Put The Green Agenda In An Economic Tailspin

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If the eco-activists could wave a magic wand, gas cars would disappear, and we would all be driving electric. That dream of theirs may now be sitting 16,000 feet below sea level.

Three weeks ago, when a fire started on the ‘Morning Midas’ car carrier, it barely made a blip on the news. Yours truly noticed the story, but did not see it rising to the level of eliciting our readers’ interest. After all, it’s not the first time we’ve seen a ship catch fire as it carries electric vehicles across the ocean.

And yet, that’s exactly the point.

You see, after the world lost interest in the story about (another) burning container ship, and all hands abandoned ship once the fire suppression system failed, that ship continued to burn.

And burn.

And burn.

Three weeks later, the Morning Midas and its cargo had slipped beneath the waves en route to the ocean floor, some 16,000 feet below.

The Morning Midas, a 600‑foot Liberian‑flagged car‑carrier built in 2006, capsized and sank in international waters of the North Pacific Ocean on June 23, weeks after a fierce onboard fire rendered the ship adrift.

On June 3, the vessel reported smoke from its stern, near the deck loaded with about 70 fully electric vehicles and nearly 730 hybrids, part of a 3,000‑vehicle cargo en-route from Yantai, China, to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico. The US Coast Guard crews received the distress signal and responded with air support but were unable to extinguish the blaze. After sustaining uncontrollable fire damage, the crew abandoned ship on June 5 and was rescued by a merchant vessel, with no casualties reported.

Zodiac Maritime stated the combination of fire damage, heavy seas, and water ingress sealed the ship’s fate. The vessel sank around 16:35 local time (UTC–9) on June 23, into water depths near 5,000 metres, some 360–415 nautical miles from land. — Odisha Bytes

If it was one ship? You might chalk it up to an accident. Two ships? Maybe a coincidence. But this is the third such incident where a container ship carrying electric vehicles was lost to an out-of-control fire.

Insurance companies don’t like these kinds of coincidences. They become really expensive, really quickly. Adjusting to new levels of risk leaves the insurance company with two choices: raise prices to match their risk, or refuse to cover dangerous cargo.

Here’s a description of the issue, with reference to the three ships in question. Either way, it’s bad news for an EV industry that already has manufacturers switching their manufacturing priorities to more conventional vehicles.

With China having more or less cornered the market on lithium batteries, it’s going to get a lot more expensive to ship them across the Pacific.

For an EV industry that’s already losing automotive market share while seeing government incentives evaporate, that’s yet another reason for customers to choose the traditional gas-powered car instead of the Chinese-made electric alternative.

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