MCEE Solutions

🔥 Lithium-ion Battery Fires During Transportation: Key Facts & Recent Incidents in 2025

Jun 11, 2025

Lithium-ion batteries are essential to modern mobility and electronics, but they pose serious fire risks during transportation by road, air, and sea. These risks are growing due to the global rise in electric vehicles (EVs), e-bikes, and portable battery use.


🚛 Ground Transportation

  • Recent Trends: Delivery trucks and cargo vans carrying devices like e-scooters, e-bikes, or consumer batteries have caught fire due to thermal runaway from damaged or improperly stored batteries. Improper packaging, lack of cooling, and exposure to heat in enclosed vehicles are common causes.


  • Notable Example: Mountain View, California (June 2025): A drone charging inside a parked pickup burst into flames. One person was injured, and the vehicle was destroyed.


✈️ Air Transportation

  • Risks: Lithium-ion batteries can ignite due to pressure changes, mechanical damage, or short circuits during air transit.


  • Response: TSA (U.S.) recently banned lithium power banks from checked luggage to prevent fires in airplane cargo holds (June 2025).
    IATA (International Air Transport Association) requires batteries to be shipped as Class 9 hazardous goods, with strict packaging and labeling.


🚢 Sea Transportation

  • Growing Concern: EVs and battery shipments at sea are leading to major fires, with suppression and containment being particularly difficult.


  • Major Incidents:  Morning Midas Fire (June 2025) - Cargo ship with ~800 EVs caught fire mid-Pacific. Crew evacuated after CO₂ systems failed. Fire suspected to start from thermal runaway in a vehicle battery.


  • Past Incidents: Felicity Ace (2022) and Fremantle Highway (2023) lost due to EV battery fires.


  • Challenges:
    Battery fires can reignite even after suppression.
    Ship systems like CO₂ or water mist are ineffective against lithium fires.
    Regulatory bodies like the IMO are under pressure to update safety codes.


Lithium-ion battery fires have become a major transportation safety concern, affecting everything from personal devices like drones and e-bikes to large-scale shipments of electric vehicles and battery pallets. While regulatory measures are increasing, effective enforcement and global coordination remain critical challenges.