[imagesource: Reuters]

You’ve probably seen headlines lamenting the loss of loads of expensive luxury cars that are burning up on a cargo ship out in the mid-Atlantic ocean.

The fire began on Wednesday last week and seems to still have fuel to burn around 1 000 Porches, over 100 Bentleys, and an undisclosed number of Lamborghinis and Audis currently onboard, per VICE.

The Felicity Ace ship was supposed to transport the estimated 4 000 vehicles from Volkswagen’s factory in Germany to the US but is now currently adrift near Portugal’s Azores islands.

Luckily, the 22-strong crew was rescued by the Portuguese Navy on Wednesday, while the cars are still going down in flames, fuelled by the lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles on board.

This was the state of the ship on February 18:

Image: Reuters

Image: Reuters

Image: Reuters

The insurance estimates, per The Guardian, are sitting at $401 million (over R6 million) worth of cars on the ship.

This comes as a double slap in the face for carmakers already struggling with a precarious global supply chain, leaving customers less trusting than before.

Thankfully, the ship is not yet leaking oil, and recovery and firefighting operations are planning the best moves to make sure the crisis is handled with as little damage done to the environment as possible.

According to Business Insider, Volkswagen and Porsche are looking into what went wrong and how the fire started.

Let’s take a moment for that poor influencer who lost their brand new Porsche.

[sources:guardian&businessinsider&vice]