Island Echo always welcomes letters to the editor, which may of course not reflect the views of the publication and its staff.
Letter to the editor – 27th July 2023
“Another fire onboard a car carrier following what is believed to be an Electric Vehicle (EV with Li-ion battery) fire and so very sad someone has died.
“These EVs are generally very safe but when they catch fire, especially on a ferry or car carrier they are so dangerous and it is almost impossible to put a Li-ion battery fire out in such confined spaces as the fire spreads so quickly.
Article continues below this advertisement “A Norwegian ferry company, Havila Kystrute, has banned all-electric, hybrid and hydrogen cars from its ships after a risk assessment.
“I live on the Isle of Wight and if one the ferries has an EV fire, apart from the evacuation of the passengers and subsequent dangers, potentially the ferry could be out of service for 3 days (due to the fear of the battery reigniting and difficulty of removing these fire damaged vehicles) – or much worse.
“These ferries are a lifeline to the Isle of Wight and there is no capacity to replace them; something more has to be done to protect these ferries from EV (Li-ion battery) fires. This is not just for the Isle of Wight, but elsewhere in the UK and beyond.
“Down to the experts, Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), ferry companies, etc, but they need to be proactive and not reactive as this will be too late, as can be seen by the latest EV fire.
“Some crew members jumped into the water, what would happen with so many passengers onboard, especially those who are disabled. We need to be sure that our lifeline is kept open and we are kept safe.”
Article continues below this advertisement
John
Isle of Wight
I wouldn’t worry about fires, they are just a fad for loonies! they will see sense soon and buy normal cars again
Is that happen with yours? What, never had one? Interesting stance if you’ve never owned one. My roof solar allows me to drive my car for free (except insurance). Many petrol car fires on the island, never have been an EV fire on the island. So yes, don’t worry about EV fires, it’s all FUD spread by the oil lobbies.
Yer free charge,but EV car cost more to buy than my car’s fuel cost for 20yrs. My gas car hasn’t killed children in it manufacturing,it hasn’t made poor people even poorer and starving to death,my car can be recycled. My car’s pollution is nothing like the co2 produced by Amazon – cardboard and paper recycling is greatest followed by cotton and then Cow’s. Think of the pollution caused by this ship,and waste of 3700 cars Could be upwards of billion pounds – that could of fed alot of hungry children !.
You have been reading the mail or express. Stop it now, if you want to understand pollution and environmental damage just look at the Tory Canyon disaster in the Uk, or overseas Exxon Valdez. Then look at the deaths cause by the oil companies in the Nigerian Delta.
I think permission to feel smug comes with every EV, If you look, it’s probably listed in the handbook as a feature…
No Fred I’ve never owned one and never will, you say alows you to drive for free, your delusional, you will have spent a small fortune on all that crap to charge you worthless milk float, just so you can drive around thinking your saving the planet, well your not, your just playing in to the hands of the loonies pushing all this nonsense, they will push back the dates for banning petrol cars because it’s only a handful of old idiots that have jumped on the bandwagon, the sensible people will carry on driving their reliable diesel cars, but good luck trying to flog that milk float on in a few years, bloody great for the environment that Fred
How much did your roof solar panels cost then?
Our neighbour bought an EV, which was parked right against our fence and our children sleep above, so I have bought a roll out fire proof ladder so they can escape if the thing bursts into flames one night.
Problem is if they explode afraid the ladder is rather close to the site.
Perhaps EV’s should be forced by law to be stored in fire proof garages or metal covers over them all.
I just really don’t care
electric vehicles are a joke
What a load of FUD! The ferry company that has band them operates a 12 day route not a 40 minute one!
Looks like the fuel lobbies useful idiots have been at work again.
How many ev’s fires have been on a wight link ferry? NONE!
How many engine room fires are been on a wight link ferry? At least three in the last five years.
Only a matter of time , once there is a high percentage of these vehicle’s then we can see for our selves
Exactly. It’s early days yet. Hope me and my loved ones won’t be on that first fatal ferry fire when, not if, it happens..
This is the second container ship to burst into flames carrying EV’s, this happened last year again to VW which destroyed a ship full of high end cars caused by one EV experiencing thermal runaway. The ship now still burning in the north sea has 498 EV’s on fire! the ship was only 10 yrs old and thats now toast, if an EV suddenly got thermal runaway on the ferry thats us fuc*ed as well as it’ll take out the ferry and all the other cars with it..watch South Park episode 2, season 10/Smug Alert..
Engine rooms on ships have fire suppression systems and are quickly extinguished!! EV’s are a completely different kettle of fish, Hard to put out!!
EV fires can take up to 30 years to be put out.
Never been a nuclear bomb gone off on the Isle of wight…should we allow everyone to have one sitting outside their house knowing the damage that it COULD cause!?
So your suggesting they ban all EV’s on ferries then I guess. Well thats not practical is it considering that in a few years’ time, the majority of personal vehicles will be electric.
Maybe, as has been said numerous times then we should get a tunnel here.
I for one hope they don’t stop them going on ferries or I will be stuck here unable to travel where I want when I want.
Fires in tunnels are far worse than fires on Ferries…. Europe /chunnel know only too well.
Plenty of public transport you can use instead, quite happy stopping people who can’t afford electric to not be able to travel themselves but don’t like the idea that you won’t be able to travel in your car? I see a wonderful smug double standard here!
I didn’t say anything about stopping people travelling! I’m saying in short, the letter is a bias load of crap!
I said it’s not practical to stop EV’s on ferries. Yes I am actually awaiting delivery of my EV. No, I don’t want to be confined to the island if I want to go away to the mainland.
And yes we do need a tunnel. Ferries far too expensive, never full, price hike in school hols, shall I continue?
Geez can’t people understand full text anymore!
Nothing like a smug show off, is there? Couldn’t afford one even if I were stupid enough to wish to buy one…
Zed – Second hand from around £4K. Take a look at the Zoe. Perfect for the island.
Sharon – enjoy your EV.
No the majority of vehicles will not be EV in a few years time or even 30 years time, the average working family will never be able to afford the extortionate overpriced purchase price of an EV.
Any more than they would be able to afford the cost of a replacement battery when it requires one, you need to checkout the cost of replacing the battery, you need to take off your rose tinted glasses and get real about the longterm cost of running an EV because it is not and never will be affordable to the average car owner.
Dead right
Red Funnel gives electric car drivers a 25% discount and have done since 2017, so obviously they aren’t worried.
Grossly unfair on those that don’t have one. I would think with the extra weight and fire risk they should pay the same or more.
Seems rather unfair given the weight and perceived fire risk. As they take same area as petrol they should be the same fare if not more
That’s just ferry companies virtue signalling, as they are not owned by traditional shipping companies, they are too thick to see the dangers.
This letter sponsored by Shell and BP?
EV’s are a disaster waiting to happen.
So many Tesla’s etc have caught fire recently.
Diesel for me all day long.
Where did you get that information from? I wonder if it was a reliable source? And out of interest did they give the statistics of car fires for Electric and also for dinosaur fuel?
that’s it ferry prices are going up don’t take much for that to happen
Ask the fire brigade how they put out a fire with an electric car? They don’t. They let it burn out. Currently there is no plan b. Even the emergency services don’t want electric vehicles
London Fire Brigade are trialling Electric Fire Engines .
Hasn’t Wightlink got a Hybrid ferry? What batteries do they have on that? Duracell? I’m sure that battery safety will improve generally. My Brother -in -Law had an electric mobility scooter fitted with a Li-ion battery, the experts could not decide if it was the charger or the battery that caught fire and gutted his garage. His new one has sealed lead acid batteries. His car is an EV. I often have one parked outside my bedroom window. Am I worried? Not really.
https://www.carsdover.com/electric-car-fire-statistics/
Yep.
Key statistic:
Electric car fires per 100,000 vehicles: 25
Petrol car fires per 100,000 vehicles: 1529
But the swivel eyed loons that infest this publication like fleas on a stray dog know best.
Don’t come here with your facts.
If you drive electric, you’ve been brainwashed.
Are you happy the raw materials for your smug-mobile are mined literally by hand using slave labour?
These are NOT environmentally friendly. Just the opposite, but hey, just keep swallowing the hype.
The fires are intense, and not able to be extinguished by conventional means.
A company was developing a giant fire blanket to cover the vehicle whilst it burned, you have to be quick and wearing breathing apparatus to use it.
It relies on the at hand availability of the blanket to be successful.
Maybe make that a mandatory purchase with the EV?
Have you got a mobile phone?
I mean, petrol from Saudis ain’t exactly super ethical anyway?
You can take an EV on the ferry but on line retailers won’t ship lithium batteries to the island….
Not true. I have purchased and had delivered 2 x 12volt 94amp lithium batteries that I’ve Installed on a mobility scooter. I also fitted a new smart meter, a new lithium battery charger a fused shunt for the batteries and they also come with internal pcb boards for constant monitoring of the condition of the batteries.
To buy £350 to £400 gell or glass batteries every year for the scooter is absolutely crazy. This new lithium batteries conversation has cost a fortune, in total around £1250 BUT they guarantee 10 years of use out of these batteries. So 10 years over 12 months make this better value for money plus the mileage now achieved is 6 to 7 times that of the gells.
Still can’t get a lithium battery for my battery works tools delivered here….. In fact I am awaiting a supply next week when my son in law is coming over for a holiday and he is bringing a couple with him for me.
Now I’m really worried in case the ferry he is on is going to catch fire with all the EV’s and modified mobility scooters it will be carrying…
Best get the wife to sow some asbestos substitute in your undies now
Its simple Ban all Electric Vehicle (EV with Li-ion battery) .
Probably 98% of every person that travels on all of the ferry’s are carrying a mobile phone with a battery that contains cobalt/lithium, do you think that the ferry companies are going to tell you to leave your phone or iPad at home? They even encourage you to use them by providing plugs to charge them up! I suggest you all forget about this silly nonsense regarding EV batteries and let the world carry on, this silly hype won’t change a thing
There’s a vast risk profile difference between a carrier with 1000s of them on a month long journey vs our ferries in a 45m crossing.
Let marine experts work on data, not emotional letters.
All risk calculations have been done already when they were first allowed in, just like any new type of cargo.
I guess people downvoting me think that risk calculations for cargo haven’t been performed. Please inform the courts immediately if you think that’s the case.
After just getting back from a couple weeks away in the sun, I didn’t see one electric vehicle where I was in Greece, it frustrates me that our government seem hell bent on pushing all this green rubbish down our throats when no other country is doing it? They seem happy to cripple us
Too many immigrants here who will all end up eventually with cars, so since millions of extra people fill our streets the Gov has had to do something drastic as numbers swell inorganically.
That something is to price people off the roads to free up room for them and their ilk to drive on far quieter roads in the future whilst we wobble about on silly electric scooters exposed to the elements OR risk getting stabbed, raped, abused or assaulted on public transport
See what is going on, and think WHAT is the reason behind it.
I’ve thought that. How happy would the rich be if us peasants weren’t on ‘their’ roads? I’m surprised we’re still allowed to fly!
There was no suspicion the the started in an EV. The Dutch coastguard said it started *near* an EV. This was then misreported to the extent that people like this letter writer believe it to be a fact.
EVs are less likely to set on fire than an ICE. That is a fact. There’s are many, many times more fires inviting ICE vehicles than electric proportionate to the number on the road. But that inconvenient truth doesn’t play to the need for contrarians like John to believe that they alone are clever enough to see through the conspiracy theory they so desperately want to exist.
EVs are better and safer than ICE.
Indeed – “A US insurer studied data from the National Transportation Safety Board and concluded that battery-powered EVs suffer only 25 fires per 100,000 sold, compared with 1,530 for petrol or diesel vehicles”
Thank you Stuart for being the voice of sanity.
Dear writer, I really do suggest you research before writing such an ill informed letter. It really does make you look foolish.
Obviously the blinkered anti-EV brigade are out in force yet again and I look forward to seeing how low this comment is voted.
In the meantime the world keeps on turning and the future of personal transport is the EV.
Bloody he’ll… that’s terrifying… Think I’ll be buying backpacks for my dogs and making sure I’m sat near lifeboats and lifejacketz next time I sail…
Wow, reading the comments and anti-ev tropes spouted by people who have never/can’t afford one, reminds me just how behind the times the island is. Glad I left.
I’m with you on that, I agree, Im glad you left.
It will all end in flames in the end
The fact is that battery fires are extremely low risk, and incidents of fires in petrol vehicles are much more common, even taking into account the relative numbers on the road. As for the mention of a fire on a freighter “caused by an EV”, there are no facts established as to what has caused that particular fire yet and the much vaunted “report” of an EV fire, are actually the report of an opinion expressed by an individual with no facts to back it up.
The fact that there are less EV fires than petrol cars is irrelevant, the point is when they do catch fire, they are ferocious and very difficult to put out and it is a legitimate question to query their safety in the confines of a packed car deck on a ferry full of hundreds of people.
Safety at sea is vitally important, and so by the same token, you could easily argue that statistically no car ferries in the Solent has sunk in the last 40 years, so why bother with all the lifeboats, rafts and jackets? Why, because globally in the last forty years there have been some terrible tragedies involving ferries, all because operators have pushed the boundaries of safety.
Common sense and discussion, not statistics and antagonism.
Probably have to bring in some kind of a disclaimer if bringing one on a ferry that it can be jettisoned if it catches fire….same could be said for solar panel battery banks in your house, normally installed in the attic…