From The Daily Sceptic

BY WILL JONES

An electric car has been linked to a fire on a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles in the North Sea which killed one person and forced others to jump overboard. The Telegraph has more.

Authorities warned the blaze, which began on Tuesday night off the Dutch coast on the 199-metre Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, “could burn for days” despite efforts to extinguish it.

Rescue ships sprayed water onto the burning boat in an attempt to cool it down. It was towed out of shipping lanes and a salvage vessel was hooked on to stop it from drifting.

The ship was carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles in total en route from Germany to Egypt when the fire broke out.

One crew member died in the flames and several were injured, with at least seven people jumping overboard in a bid to escape the quickly-spreading flames, before being rescued.

A helicopter airlifted the remaining people from the 23-strong crew off the ship. Those injured were being treated for breathing problems, burns and broken bones.

The cause of the blaze remains unknown, the Dutch coastguard said on its website, but a spokesperson for the department said earlier on Wednesday that it had erupted near an electric car.

A report from Dutch broadcaster NOS also quoted an unnamed official as suggesting the fire may have been sparked by an electric vehicle, one of some 25 on board.

“We are taking into account all scenarios,” the official said.

Authorities said the blaze was “most definitely still not controlled”.

“It’s a very hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting,” said Edwin Versteeg, a spokesperson for the Dutch department of waterways and public works.

Sounds like it could be just the latest disaster caused by the unwelcome tendency of electric cars to spontaneously combust, raising further questions about the safety of the technology.

Worth reading in full.

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