Free Republic

If fire departments on land have problems unleashing the torrent of water needed to extinguish a single burning EV, the crew of a ship doesn't stand a chance against hundreds of flaming lithium-ion batteries. A cargo ship carrying around 3,000 vehicles across the Pacific Ocean caught fire on Tuesday. The Morning Midas, a 600-foot cargo ship, was in the middle of a voyage from Yantai, China to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico when the fire broke out. Zodiac Maritime, the ship's London-based operator, noted that smoke was first spotted on a deck carrying 800 electric vehicles. Once the blaze got out of...

It's a fire hazard. Gov. Ron DeSantis urged owners of electric vehicles in Florida on Wednesday to drive them to higher ground to avoid them being exposed to seawater as part of Hurricane Helene. DeSantis said such vehicles can catch fire when seawater from storm surges inundates the battery packs, and those fires can be difficult for firefighters to extinguish. “Just know that when you have saltwater intrusion in that, they can catch fire,” DeSantis said. He said there were instances during Hurricane Ian when a home survived the Category 5 hurricane, but the vehicle parked in the garage caught...

A day after a Tesla Semi caught fire and left Interstate 80 in a chokehold, California lawmakers are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to delay a state mandate for big rigs in the state to be all-electric by 2045. Along the freeway east of Nyack in Placer County, traffic stretch on for miles as crews tried to extinguish the Tesla fire. Another issue at play was the toxic fumes being emitted from the vehicle, the California Highway Patrol said.