You may have read that the Morning Midas – a cargo ship full of EVs – just sank after floating (and burning) for 20 days adrift, after at least one of the EVs spontaneously combusted and the others joined in. These EV fires burn very hot and very fast and for that reason are very hard to put out, especially at sea. The crew of the Midas abandoned ship and for 20 days, extremely toxic emissions – as opposed to the innocuous “emissions” of carbon dioxide – were emitted by the burning hulk until, finally, the god-knows-how-many-tons of toxic waste was buried at sea.
Sea life will pay for that. But we will pay the estimated $560 million that was lost at sea. – via the next increase in the cost of the car insurance premiums we’re forced to pay. Most people are already paying twice or more what they were forced to pay as recently as three or four years ago and while some of that can be legitimately attributed to “inflation” (i.e., the devaluation of the fiat currency we’re forced to use) the great bulk of it is a cost-shifting that can be attributed to losses incurred by EVs, including the losses to the sea. When a cargo ship full of these fire-prone devices goes down, someone’s going to have to pay for that.
Guess who?
It won’t be the insurance companies as they are not in the business of losing money. That is why they are increasing the cost of the premiums you are forced to buy, in order to offset the actual and predictably coming losses incurred by EVs. Two cargo ships full of them have already gone down. Others are likely to. How many houses and parking garages have burned to the ground because an EV lit up? There was one such case – of the latter, a house burning down – in my general area of the world. It happened about a year ago and it involved a Mercedes EQE EV that may have been the EV I test drove just a week or so prior. The EV was a press car – that is, a vehicle owned by a vehicle manufacturer loaned out to the car press to test drive/write about.
These typically get sent back to a dealer for service in between press loans. The EQE that I drove may have been the one a Mercedes dealer loaned to a customer while the latter’s car was in for service. The customer drove the EQE to their home and parked it outside their garage. They didn’t plug it in. Even so, it caught fire – and burned down most of their house, resulting in a loss equivalent to a multi-car pileup with several serious injuries that someone’s going to have to pay for.
Guess who?
See, it doesn’t matter whether you want nothing to do with EVs and do not want one anywhere near your home. The cost of the insurance you’re forced to pay (never mind that you haven’t cost anyone else a cent – including the insurance mafia that uses the government to force you to pay) has already gone up double digits and will continue to go up because the costs incurred by EVs are not going down. There are millions of the things already in circulation and so it is inevitable there will be more fires, especially as more time goes by and EVs (and their battery packs) age and degrade as a consequence of wear and tear. All it takes is a tendril – a kind of spider web crack – forming within the delicate matrix of the battery pack’s cells, to trigger a short and thus a fire and there’s no practical way to prevent this from happening. It just happens.
These EVs are also much heavier than a vehicle of comparable size and so impart more force in a crash. Guess who’s going to pay for that, too?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were free to not be forced to pay for costs incurred by others over whom we have no control? Isn’t it exasperating to know that because some other person has made a choice, you get to be held responsible for it?
If we lived in a free country, people would be free to choose and would be on the hook for the consequences (if any) of their choices but other people wouldn’t be. People who choose to buy an EV would have to pay more for coverage based upon the increased risk they choose to assume. Note the voluntary aspect of this. No one is forced to buy an EV – nor should anyone ever be forced to buy one. Just as no one ever ought to be forced to exercise or eat their broccoli, either. But if you choose to get flabby and unhealthy, then the consequences of that ought to be yours to deal with, entirely. It is beyond obnoxious that the person who does take care of themselves and so remains healthy is forced to pay the costs of the care of the unhealthy person who chose to live in such as way as to very much increase the costs of the care he now requires.
Just as it is obnoxious in the extreme to offload the costs incurred (and likely to be incurred) by people who choose to buy an EV. Or choose to load a cargo ship full of the things and when it all goes up in toxic smoke – and to the bottom of the sea – we who had nothing to do with it and no control over it get to pay for it.
. . .
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I saw recently that one of the Car-Carrier Shipping firms (forgot which one) now REFUSES to haul EV’s.
After getting scooped by Eric’s article on kei trucks a few weeks ago, the NYT belatedly hops on the bandwagon:
‘Ubiquitous in Japan for decades, Kei trucks are extremely small, decidedly slow and quietly growing in popularity among American consumers.
‘A smorgasbord of Kei cars and trucks filled the car wash parking lot in Alexandria, Virginia. Daihatsu Hijets. Honda Actys. Mitsubishi Minicabs. Each built to Kei class standards — about 11 feet 1 inch long and 4 feet 10 inches wide, or smaller, and powered by three- or four-cylinder engines. Nearly all of them had personal touches that made the vehicles seem as if they were aware of their limitations.
‘A red FIRE MISSILES button where the cigarette lighter goes. Vanity plates like VRYSLW and ANARKEI. Bumper stickers that alluded to the presence of enough horsepower to mow a small lawn.
“I think a lot of millennials with disposable income are reliving their ‘Need for Speed’ dreams,” Mike McDonald, a product manager at a tech startup, said in a telephone interview. “We had a bunch of video games that let us drive mid- to late ’90s J.D.M. cars, and now they’re becoming available.”
https://archive.ph/2v3TR#selection-833.0-837.210
Meanwhile, the chip-encrusted dog doo offered by contemporary auto makers is so deeply unpopular with customers that the budget reconciliation bill restores interest deductions for car loans.
Too late! We don’t want your turbo-techno crap at any price, including free.
$5 Trillion We’ll All Soon Be Paying
All you need to know about today’s macabre clown show in the Senate:
Senate Version Of Trump Tax Bill Adds $3.3 Trillion To Deficit, $500BN More Than The House; Debt Ceiling Raised By $5 Trillion — the hill.com
‘Other Peoples Money’ is the closest thing to being free. 🙁
That cargo ship sank right in the middle of the Alaska prime fisheries, where huge megatrawels catch and process the fish for those delicious McFish sandwiches.
https://shipwrecklog.com/log/2025/06/morning-midas-sank/
“On June 23, the the 183 meter long, 12250 dwt car carrier Morning Midas (IMO: 9289910) sank in the Pacific Ocean some 450 miles southwest of Alaska’s Aleutian Island of Adak after being on fire for nearly 3 weeks. The salvage company Zodiac Maritime stated the vessel had suffered water ingress from the fire damage causing the vessel to finally sink. The car carrier sank to a depth of 16,404 feet.”
The US Coast Guard photo shows the hull minus paint.
Mmmmmmmm, yum, those McDonalds fish sandwiches taste like EV.
Incoming USC basketball player Alijah Arenas has detailed what led up to the fiery Tesla Cybertruck crash that put him in a coma in April.
The Cybertruck locked up the controls, locked the doors, and hit a fire hydrant (ironically) then burst into flames. Elon was trying to kill him. He survived by the luck of some good Samaritans helping get him out of the vehicle.
Holy shit. Why wasn’t this bigger news, and why are Teslas still on the road?
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/45583696/alijah-arenas-crash-fighting-escape-burning-truck
It’s not just eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees that are driving the cost of insurance up. Long before that, it has been the addition of saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety equipment designed to keep us saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe. Automatic braking, lane keep assistance technology, blind spot monitoring, drowsy driving monitoring systems, the list goes on. This just adds to it.
I’ve personally had a lithium battery fire in my garage. Luckily, it was an RC car battery being charged and not an EV, and also luckily, I was there at the time and was able to get it outside before it burned my house down.
And full disclosure, the battery fire I had was because I made a genuine mistake in my charger settings, it was 100% my fault and I know it was, however, as someone that has been charging RC car batteries (and innumerable other batteries as well) since the 1980’s, it was a surprisingly easy mistake to make, even for a battery charging veteran like myself.
Now, I have a genuine paranoia when it comes to lithium batteries. I set my phone in a cast iron skillet when it’s charging, just as a for instance, in case anything catastrophic happens.
The thing is, though, I know it’s just a “phase” we happen to be going through. Since I started using rechargeable batteries in the 1980’s, I’ve seen battery tech progress very quickly in my lifetime, going from NiCd to NiMh to LiPo in a few decades, which is an impressive pace of advancement, and now we have the promise of solid-state and sodium batteries just on the horizon. So, while the current Lithium tech batteries are a bit sensitive, I know it’s temporary, and the next battery tech is right around the corner. In a decade or so we’ll be laughing about those “dangerous Lithium batteries” as though they were just a bad memory.
Hold fast.
Hi LMPY.
I’ve got a buddy that converted an old gas BBQ into a weather proof charging station for his RC plane batteries. Plug the batteries in and close the cover; if it goes up you’ve already got them in a fireproof enclosure. He charges them outside.
I like how all the articles claim there are “no visible signs of pollution” from the wreck when it sank in over 16,000 ft of water. No shit? Also couldn’t help but notice a good 1/4 of the cars onboard were chinese EV’s and hybrids. Wonder if any of them are from leaked drone footage of brandnew, unsold chinese EV’s rotting away in the elements for years at a time. Some of the footage leaked is from as far back as 2019 supposedly. Literal time bombs… wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they just started dragging them out of the weeds and slapping 2025 VIN’s on them to sell in oversea markets.
“You Will bow down to Zod, if not you, then one day your heirs….. Kneel before Zod.” – Terrence Stamp’s General Zod Superman II.
No truer statement was ever made. We all must bow before Zod, and one day our heirs. I doesn’t matter if we want nothing to do with Zod and his minions and machinations. Zod is all powerful, we saw we he did to Mt Rushmore – thousands of hours to create and they defaced it in seconds.
The oranger superman isn’t here to save us. We are too poor for him to care.
In my state our “representatives” are contemplating a mileage tax (that MAY replace our state gas tax lol) because EV’s dont contribute via the gas tax. Ok so why not just tax EV owners via mileage? None of the genius’ in our local media even bring this concept up. Sigh
State?
Sounds like WA, especially the media not asking questions that might make the POS reps uncomfortable. They literally are in love with the government here. Reporter Mona Lee marries Governor Gary Locke. Reporter Dana Middleton became comms director for Gov Christine Gregoire. (Middleton now some type of mystic healer) Reporter Charles Royer becomes mayor of Seattle. It’s a cozy club and obviously we’re not in it!
‘See, it doesn’t matter whether you want nothing to do with EVs’ — eric
Reportedly the budget resolution which the Senate has been grappling with all weekend repeals the egregious $7,500 EeeVee tax credit. I haven’t actually gone through its 940 pages to verify this.
Today the legislative circus reconvenes at 9 am, as dozens of amendments are voted on. Recall that last Friday, the Senate rejected (47-53) Senator Kaine’s war powers resolution, which would have put some brakes on Traitor Trump’s random firebombings of foreign capitals. The 53 opponents included 52 Republiclowns, plus a homeless guy named Fetterman who wandered in off the street in his gray gym shorts and joined in the voting because, why not?
As always when the Uniparty convenes, the ‘compromise’ is that both wings get their priorities funded, while those who aren’t present — the taxpayers — get shafted with the tab. Meanwhile the permawars drag on, as little Shitrahell bombs Gaza City with ‘our’ weapons.
“We had no choice but to leave everything behind,” said Abeer Talba, a mother of seven who fled Zeitoun with her family.
“We got phone calls recordings in Arabic telling us we were in a combat zone and must evacuate immediately.
“This is the seventh time we’ve been forced to flee,” she added. “We’re in the streets again, no food, no water. My children are starving. Death feels kinder than this.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62884y1pl5o
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerer of death’s construction
In the fields, the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
— Black Sabbath, War Pigs
Everything is upside down.
Senator Kaine’s war powers resolution is intended to limit the President’s ability to unilaterally wage war in Iran based on the The War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was touted as “a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.” As part of our system of governmental “checks and balances,” the law aims to check the executive branch’s power when committing U.S. military forces to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. It stipulates the president must notify Congress within 48 hours of military action and prohibits armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days.”
However, Article I, Section 8 of the goddamn U.S. Constitution specifically provides that only the Congress shall have the ability to declare war.
Capo Gecko’s General Re racket may indeed be involved in the coverage of the ship and its contents.
The Capo loves his float and talked often about it in his shareholder letters.
The incoming CEO of the Capo’s rackets has a utility background.
Socialized losses; privatized profits. “We’re all in this together,” but only when the bill comes due.
Lithium ion batteries are the problem and these risks are EVERYWHERE.
Here’s a battery lawnmower that took down a detached garage and an EeeeeVeeee along with it.
https://www.newzjunky.com/electric-lawn-mower-fire-in-morristown/
I design things that use them, lots of things over the years. I don’t really trust lithium batteries but you also don’t have much choice. Sitting at my desk here at work I have at least five things with lithium cells (and a couple of UPSes with gel lead-acid) within arm’s reach. Alkaline can’t be recharged and leak, NiMH have capacity issue, lead acid is heavy and you have to watch depth of discharge. There’s no perfect way to store energy. Liquid fuels are also flammable as we all know and aren’t easy to use in a laptop. There are things you can do to reduce the risks of lithium but nothing is 100% safe.
Life isn’t 100% safe either, so you have to weigh pros and cons. I’m not prepared to give up everything with a battery just yet. It’s also true that some things I own and have designed are decades old and there’s no history of them just randomly exploding, so there’s a matter of not knowing how every individual treats their stuff. If you expose batteries to extreme temperatures and throw them around, drop them, etc. you increase the chance of issues. That would be like calling all gasoline jerry cans or spray paint can dangerous only based on the fact that someone burned their house down when they sparked one while welding in their garage. You have to be aware of what you’re doing and every manual I’ve written (and the legal department reviewed) mentioned standard cautions that should cover 99% of the possible risks. But we do sometimes have to add new ways someone figures out how to break things.
Hi Nick,
It’s one thing to have a small battery in a small device such as a laptop. But in a vehicle, you have a massive battery pack that is subject to extremes of temperature as well as violent shocks (e.g., that bad pothole you just hit) and that greatly increases both the risk of a fire and the danger of a fire, if it erupts.
I consider it absurd beyond words to replace 90 pounds of gasoline (and maybe 50 pounds of tank) with 800 pounds of lithium-ion battery pack, especially given the latter will only provide enough storage capacity to take you about half as far as 15 gallons will in a car that averages 30 MPG or so.
My observations are anecdotal but it appears that the larger the lithium ion battery the larger the potential for catastrophic failure.
Seems to me to still take caution (smart idea with the cast iron pan) when charging the small devices like cell phones, laptops, etc. The airlines clearly know of the risk since they won’t permit lithium batteries of ANY size in the cargo holds due to no ability to suppress a fire. And more recently they don’t want you messing with your seat in case your phone falls into it – because if the thing gets pinched in the seat mechanism it could set off a fire – albeit a minor and hopefully controllable one.
Most US Americans pay no mind to warnings and rarely read the fine print.
As these stupid lawnmowers, yard tools, large hand tools and scooters/mobile devices age and batteries get damaged/overcharged/improperly charged, expect to see more fires.
This guy is a great resource for unbiased science on the topic from a firefighting perspective. Shockingly, he doesn’t make assertions as this is an evolving problem.
https://www.youtube.com/@StacheDTraining
That’s a Ryobi mower, too. Good name brands don’t mean much when it comes to Lithium batteries, it would seem.
Insurance is really just Socialism applied to property loss.
It’s a legal mafia shake down. You are going to pay up or else.
Even if you self insure the effect of increased insurance costs are passed on in some way in everything that you buy. Of course even a regional war would increase costs dramatically whether as a result of weapons purchases or destruction of shipping.
Plan accordingly because one way or another costs will go up whether due to GovCo policy’s or natural disasters.