Free Republic

EEMSHAVEN, Netherlands — Tugboats towed a freight ship that burned for a week on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars into a Dutch port on Thursday for salvaging, laying to rest fears that it could sink close to shipping lanes and a protected habitat for birds. The Fremantle Highway was taken to the northern port of Eemshaven, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management said. A boat that has special booms to clean up oil spills accompanied the nearly 200-meter-long (around 650-foot-long) vessel as a precaution. The ship with 3,784 new vehicles, including 498 electric ones, on...

The saga of the Fremantle Highway, a special purpose auto carrier ship that has been on fire off of Holland for almost a week, killing at least one crew member, now raises even deeper suspicions about the role of lithium ion batteries, used in electric cars, as a source and aggravating factor in the blaze. In a report published here on AT 5 days ago, we cited reporting from CBS News that as many as 25 electric vehicles may have been among the more than 3000 cars being transported from Germany to Egypt. Now comes news that 20 times more...