Earlier this week, a cargo ship transporting cars caught fire in the central Pacific Ocean and was abandoned. According to sources who spoke to Bloomberg, the ship was carrying vehicles from several Chinese car manufacturers.
The United States Coast Guard provided the latest data on Thursday (June 5th) regarding the “Morning Midas” cargo ship, which measures 600 feet long and was confirmed to be carrying a total of 3,048 cars. Among them, 70 were electric vehicles and 681 were hybrid cars.
The vehicles onboard include brands from manufacturers like Chery Automobile Co. and Great Wall Motor Co., with the destination being Mexico. It is still unclear which electric vehicle brand first caught fire. As the investigation is still in its early stages, the sources have requested anonymity.
The “Morning Midas” set sail from Yantai Port in Shandong. Yantai Port is also where the SAIC-GM joint venture factory is located, producing the Buick Envision model. According to Chinese media reports, Anji Logistics, a subsidiary of SAIC, is the charterer of this cargo ship.
Zodiac Maritime, the ship management company, stated that at midnight on Tuesday (June 3rd) in Coordinated Universal Time, which was 8 days into the 19-day journey of the “Morning Midas,” thick smoke was spotted coming from the deck carrying nearly 800 electric vehicles (including pure electric and hybrid cars).
The crew immediately initiated emergency fire extinguishing procedures, but the fire could not be contained. Ultimately, the crew had to abandon the cargo ship and thousands of brand new cars to escape.
The U.S. Coast Guard stated that the incident occurred about 300 miles south of Adak Island in Alaska. All 22 crew members on board were evacuated and rescued by a nearby commercial vessel.
One source revealed that Great Wall Motor had around 140 cars on the ship, but they were not electric vehicles and were not on the deck where the fire started.
A spokesperson for Chery Automobile declined to comment, while Great Wall Motor did not immediately respond to Bloomberg’s inquiries, and there was no response from Anji Logistics to calls and emails.
This is not the first time a ship carrying electric vehicles has caught fire at sea. In 2022, a ship carrying 4,000 luxury cars (including Porsche and Bentley) caught fire off the coast of the Azores in Portugal, burning for nearly two weeks before sinking.