Fire on the "Morning Midas": Burning car carriers pose a billion-dollar risk

When the U.S. Coast Guard received the distress call from the "Morning Midas" on the afternoon of June 3, smoke was rising from the stern of the car carrier off the coast of Alaska. The 22-person crew was rescued by a freighter that came to their aid, but their ship continued to burn for days. Aerial photos from June 8 show extensive damage to the exterior paintwork—a sure sign that fire raged internally on all decks and across the entire length of the ship. The cargo is believed to have been completely destroyed: 3,048 cars, including 70 fully electric and 681 hybrid vehicles.

"By now, it should be clear to everyone that the transport of electric vehicles poses as yet unsolved problems for maritime fire protection," says Anja Käfer-Rohrbach, Managing Director of the German Insurance Association (GDV). The "Morning Midas" is causing insurers total losses in the hundreds of millions of euros, and her association is strongly criticizing the safety standards on board the ships.

"It's high time shipping companies invested in the safety of car carriers," says Käfer-Rohrbach. She points to two other similar fires: In 2022, the "Felicity Ace" sank off the Azores, and a year later, the "Fremantle Highway" burned in the North Sea. On board each were nearly 4,000 new cars, including several hundred with electric drive. "This means that more than 10,000 brand-new vehicles have been destroyed on car carriers since 2022, with damages amounting to well over one billion euros," says Käfer-Rohrbach.

According to insurers' data, there's no evidence that electric cars catch fire more easily than gasoline-powered vehicles. But when they do, they're much harder to extinguish. "Fires involving lithium-ion batteries are associated with extreme heat development and the formation of toxic gases," states a position paper from the GDV experts. A normal fire "will eventually run out of steam," says a shipping expert. A battery continues to burn even in the absence of oxygen and can even reignite after being extinguished.

Above all, the GDV is calling for better monitoring systems on ships to detect fires more quickly. Firefighting must begin within six minutes if there's any chance of fires being extinguished. Crews also need better training and equipment. However, this doesn't help much on the widely used RoRo (roll-on, roll-off) ships: cars are packed so tightly that the source of the fire is almost impossible to reach. "Under these conditions, manual firefighting by the crew is no longer practical." Fully automated systems are needed.

GDV experts have already drafted a position paper with detailed safety requirements. However, rapid implementation is not in sight, not only because of the associated costs. The current ships are built according to the applicable regulations, the expert says – but these date back to the pre-electric era. And the ships are set to become even larger: freighters for 9,000 cars are currently being planned. If such a ship burns down completely, at a unit price of 40,000 euros, the damage would amount to 360 million euros – plus an estimated 150 million euros for the ship itself.

It's no wonder, then, that the dispute over safety has also reached the courts. On Friday, the Braunschweig Regional Court announced that the sinking of the "Felicity Ace" would be heard in early July. The maritime case landed there because the cars on board the freighter, which sank in 2022, were brands of the Wolfsburg-based VW Group – and the company is only supposed to pay damages in the hundreds of millions. The dispute has been simmering for a long time, and now settlement negotiations have apparently failed.

According to court records, the ship's owner, the shipping company, and marine hull insurers, including the Allianz Group according to trade media, have filed the lawsuit. They claim that the lithium-ion battery of a car – allegedly a Porsche – spontaneously ignited and, according to previous reports, accuse their customer of failing to point out the necessary special precautions. VW counters that the fire had a different cause and that the sinking of the ship could have been prevented with prudent action.

The "Morning Midas," on the other hand, is still afloat a good two weeks after its accident. Two tugboats are on site and the fire appears to have been extinguished, the industry service "Lloyd's List" reported a few days ago. Whether the completely burned-out hull is still stable enough to be towed remains unclear, however.