Flames ongo on the boat Felicity Ace According to Reuters. That is a good news. The bad news? BILLIONThe total cost of damage to the nearly 4,000 vehicles on board could be higher than the initial estimate of $335 million.
Rough seas and stubborn flames really prevented rescue crews from getting on board the brittle ship sooner, meaning the damage had a real chance of being retained.
Automotive News Volkswagen Group dealers and sources say the total cost of the damage could be much larger than initially estimated:
“We are concerned that the train fire has damaged a large number of the Group’s nearly 4,000 brand-name vehicles to the point where they can no longer be delivered to customers. More detailed information is not yet available,” the Volkswagen Group of America wrote to Automotive News. “Brands and dealers have begun to inform their customers and look for individual solutions.”
They also reported vehicle damage will be insured.
It’s currently unclear exactly how many of each brand’s vehicles are on board, but dealers have told Automotive News that nearly half of the 4,000 are Audis. The next highest number of cars by brand is Porsche. The number of Porsche cars on board is also double that of VW. It is known that there are 189 Bentleys and 85 Lamborghinis.
If we do some rough math – and remember I’m a journalism major at Penn State and can’t do math – there are about 2,000 Audis, 1,100 Porsches, about 550 Volkswagens, 189 Bentleys and 85 Lamborghinis.
Some of those 85 Lambos will likely cause the most headaches for VW Group, as a few are the ultimate Aventadors. We reported last week that production of the Aventador has ended and Lamborghini may have to restart production if any of the cars are lost (it certainly is).
The Felicity Ace caught fire in the mid-Atlantic on February 10. The fires are increasingly difficult to put out because many of the vehicles on board have lithium-ion batteries because they run on electricity. All 22 crew members were evacuated from the struggling ship without injury.
