Let's be realistic here, in the long term very few if any ferries or shipping lines will ban EVs because if they do they will soon be out of business. About 20% of production from major manufacturers is already EVs so any major shippers who say no will also say goodbye to their contracts.

It may not be that simple. Perhaps shipping lines have some doubts about insuring their vessels. If they are mainly cargo lines, the threat of losing a few EV customers may be small.

What it may well do is significantly push the price of EVs up, because of huge increases in premiums to ship them (or batteries in significant quantities) around the world because of the possibility that just one EV car battery fire can cuase the whole ship to go down if other EVs are also on board. Similarly EV / PHEV owners could find they get charged big surcharges for ferry crossings or trips through toll-paid tunnels for similar reasons.

I suspect that new regs will have to be implemented to either restrict the numbers of EVs (or similar, inlcuing cars made of metal parts such as aluminium and magnesium) that can be carried on each container ship / ferry, plus changes to where they are stored in relation to vehicles of a similar type.

Hopefully someone wille eventually come up with a technical solution to resolve this, otherwise that 2030 deadline is increasingly looking daft.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 03/02/2023 at 13:08

Let's be realistic here, in the long term very few if any ferries or shipping lines will ban EVs because if they do they will soon be out of business. About 20% of production from major manufacturers is already EVs so any major shippers who say no will also say goodbye to their contracts.

It may not be that simple. Perhaps shipping lines have some doubts about insuring their vessels. If they are mainly cargo lines, the threat of losing a few EV customers may be small.

A few EV customers?! You are talking about every major manufacture and many minor. Quite a few big household names will be EV only in the next 2 years.

I think far too few people realise ICE will be dropped by many in next 2 year because it simply isn't worth the investment to comply with Euro 7.

"Still go via Dover Calais. Not only are they NOT restricting EVs they provide chargers either end. Yes might add some inconvenience but it's not a show stopper"

I have no idea whether BF are restricting EV's in any way.

They are a reliable and well run ferry operation.

There is a lot of difference between a quick dash across the channel taking about an hour and being stuck on an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo or Caen which nowadays takes 8 to 10 hours as the speed is reduced to save fuel.

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I was referring to the Tunnel not BF. My point was Ferries are an irrelevance.

Perhaps not irrelevant if several EVs on board spontaneously catch fire in hot conditions and lead to the sinking of the boat and loss of life...

"Look I love urban myths as much as the next guy. But Petrol cars are at least LEAST ten times more likely to catch fire. Sure EVs when alight are more intense but it's you fossil jockeys who are the fire bugs"

The point you have ignored as a pluginprat is that an IC car fire can be extinguished on board a ship by the crew using their standard fire drill which they are trained in.

Disconnect battery - put fire out.

You can't put out an EV fire using normal firefighting drills.

And the point you ignore is that A I acknowledged ev fires are more intense and B you fossil fans are at least ten times more likely to have a fire. Let that mull a bit. You accept a method of transport ten times more likely to have a fire.

Ok - let's see some figures and references - prove it!

www.thecarexpert.co.uk/are-electric-car-fires-real.../

Unsurprisingly, the UK regulators have given the situation some thought....

www.gov.uk/government/publications/mgn-653-m-elect...s

View would seem to be that the risks are low and manageable.

As electric cars are new and plenty of folks are concerned about them assessing the risk of a EV catching fire needs rather more research than looking for reports one has caught fire...

The gov document does include a lot of information, but ships and ferries cannot just be retrofitted with an array of new/extra sensors, cameras, venting and other safety equipment, plus different fire (heat) fighting gear and have newly trained staff on hand at the drop of a hat. And this all has to be paid for, as they pose a different technical threat to 'traditional' ICE vehicle fires.

It also appears to be rather vague about how to fight fires if they should pass certain thresholds of severity, especially as the staff may not be able to tell even with sensors or have sufficient time to determine what to do until its too late to make any meaningful difference.

One thing it doesn't mention is how to deal with EVs that have just been heavily used on a very hot sunny day and that are (recently) fully charged, e.g. a long trip to the coast to then go across on the ferry. A possible fault with the car's active battery cooling system might not be indicated (e.g. an error on the car) which then gets loaded onto the ferry. Would all EVs coming on board need to be inspected, and require a 'cooling down period' before coming on board?

My other concern is that this guideance seems to rely on the passive cooling EV battery systems employ when they are off, which as the EV fire that lead to the sinking of that container ship shows, wasn't sufficient to stop the fire.

As such fires are self-sustaining (the report say self-sufficient - an odd choice?), the biggest problem to me seems to stem from the number of EVs on board and their proximity to eachother, which if was 100% would be a serious problem. Most of the measures suggest are really to help stop/lessen secondary non EV battery fires, as they won't do much (if anything) to stop a battery fire once it has taken hold.

As yet, there isn't any reasonable way to put out Li-Ion fires, thus significant measures would seem to be required to stop them from starting in the first place, especially if all cars on board (or enough to cause the vessel to sink one way of the other). That is some tall order and seemingly prohibitively expensive for this shipping company.

Sometimes the overall risk score (probability of occurrance and consequences) are just too high to warrant much mitigation, thus it may come to it that some firms will either put (really) big premiums on EVs to be carried in order to meet safety rules and regs, stipluate they only carry a small number at any one time or just refuse to carry them at all.

Like a lot of issues with new tech over the last few decades, not enough research has been put into the safety side before it has been rolled out to the masses.

<< The line mentioned earlier does not serve Scotland. So far as I can see its business is coastal cruising in competition with Hurtigruten. >>

So its business may not involve carrying many EVs ?