Burning Cargo Ship Was Carrying Far More EVs Than Previously Claimed

We still don’t know if an electric car was the original source of the fire.

We’ve purposely been holding off on covering the fire aboard the cargo ship Fremantle Highway as earlier reports offered conflicting information on the number of EVs as well as the ignition source. Now the truth about how many electric vehicles were onboard is coming out and it’s worse than many reports the electric car fanboy media published.  

See what an EV fire did to a house here.

Originally, pro-EV publications like Electrek whined that reports there were 498 EVs onboard Fremantle Highway were grossly inaccurate, claiming that number was actually just 25 EVs. Some reports agreed with that lower figure. But supply chain publication The Loadstar says today not only are there more cars on the ship, 3,783 vs the previously claimed total of 2,857, there are in fact 498 EVs loaded on the vessel. That’s a higher percentage of EVs on the ship than were on the Felicity Ace, the cargo ship that caught fire and sunk in the Atlantic in early 2022. Oops.  

This “revision” of the cargo onboard the ship comes via Dutch authorities as they struggled to put out the blaze and tow the ship to a safe location. We found it suspicious the fire proved to be so hard to extinguish if such a small percentage of the cars onboard were ICE and not EVs. But the electric vehicle fan media didn’t think that was odd at all because they spend gross amounts of time claiming ICE fires are more frequent and therefore more dangerous, ignoring the stark fact that EV fires burn hotter and are notoriously more difficult to extinguish fully. Plus, EV fires far more likely to reignite, sometimes days after supposedly being put out.

One concern fire crews have had as they were battling the blaze aboard Fremantle Highway was that the ship could take on too much water. We know on land fire crews use ridiculous amounts of water to fully extinguish EV fires, so that would present quite the challenge.

As The Loadstar points out, the Felicity Ace incident triggered a wave of changes in the car carrier sector of the industry. For example, some companies refuse to take used or damaged EVs onboard any vessel. However, all cars on Fremantle Highway reportedly are new. But we also know information on car carriers is often fudged, with overloading and other problems being the result occasionally, so an investigation might reveal that in fact isn’t accurate. It would also explain the conflicting reports on the number of EVs onboard, let alone the total number of cars.

Instead of just trying to run around and calling out media outlets reporting what now appears to be accurate information about the number of EVs onboard Fremantle Highway because it doesn’t suit their preferred narrative, perhaps pro-electric car publications should take the time to understand why people are concerned about these types of situations. The strawman tactic of casting any concern about EVs as just fear of the unknown, technophobia, or some dastardly shadow plan controlled by Big Oil leads to these embarrassing situations.

Fremantle Highway earlier today arrived at a temporary location and an inspection was imminent, according to the Dutch Coast Guard. Perhaps answers about the ignition of the blaze will start to filter out soon enough. There have been claims it began with an electric car, but there’s zero confirmation, so that remains pure conjecture. However, it seems self-evident the 498 EVs onboard kept the blaze running out of control for days on end, making extinguishing the fire a challenge for Dutch authorities.

Images via Kustwacht Nederland