EV buyers are having that sinking feeling after latest eco-disaster

EV fanatics are used to making excuses for poor sales, but the real reason for declining EV popularity is because they suck, writes Tim Blair

It isn’t an easy gig these days being a satirist on the right. My team’s funniest jokes are not so much on the page as they are in senior state and federal Liberal Party roles.

And there’s only a certain amount of laughs you can get from Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers before you realise their personal get-rich schemes are entirely based on making us poor. Their parliamentary rewards flow from policies that punish the productive.

But God sometimes smiles on us old conservative wisecrackers.

Just as I was about to hit the help lines again last week, hilarious news arrived from far away: yet another ship loaded with combustible electric vehicles had caught fire, this time off the Alaskan coast.

The 48,000-tonne Morning Midas was loaded with about 2200 normal cars and 800 EV and hybrid “detonators”.

Kaboom!

Smoke rises from cargo vessel Morning Midas as the crew of the cargo ship carrying around 3,000 vehicles to Mexico abandoned ship after they could not control a fire. Picture: U.S. Coast Guard/Courtesy Air Station Kodiak via AP

Thankfully, all crew members were rescued. Can’t say the same for those machines, though.

“Smoke was initially seen rising from a deck loaded with EVs,” Reuters reported, citing shipping company sources.

“It is not clear what brand of vehicles the ship was carrying.”

A worker checks a vehicle frame on the production line for electric vehicle maker Zeekr at its factory on May 29, 2025 in Ningbo, China. Picture: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Well, considering the ship departed from China, there were probably a few Geelys, Great Walls and Build Your Dreams on board.

Plus the odd Leapmotor or two, and maybe some other emerging brands and models: Massgrave, Disappeared Intellectual, Counterrevolutionary Confession, Longfamine and the luxurious Tiananmen Square Protester (Bone Fragments Edition).

And now they’re likely destined for the bottom of the sea, along with the ship’s 2000 tonnes of fuel and Lord only knows how much toxic chemicals and rare earth poison.

The Morning Midas thus joins the Fremantle Highway (2023) and the Felicity Ace (2022) as maritime disasters suspected of being caused by planet-saving battery buggies. EVs are the fire-starting wind turbines of the waves – or they would be, if stupid wind turbines weren’t already out there.

Better luck next time! Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Sunken EVs are not restricted to the seas. Despite all the free press and fawning praise in Australian motoring media for rubbish Chinese EVs, Australian motorists are turning away.

“The number of battery electric vehicles sold in Australia has fallen to its lowest level in two years as Australians continue buying traditional internal-combustion cars or turn to conventional and plug-in hybrids,” the Guardian moaned last month.

“There were 17,914 new battery electric vehicles sold in the first three months of this year … equivalent to 6.3 per cent of all new car sales.”

EV fanatics are used to making excuses for poor sales – expect them in the letters section – but the real reason for declining EV popularity is because they suck.

Kind of simple, really.

They weigh far too much for their size and consequently handle like derailed trains. They’re still so expensive that they can only be made affordable via subsidies.

They force you to hunt for charging stations, and then to download a new app for that charging station, and then to repeat that process when you discover the first charging station is broken. Being dinky and delicate, much like EV defenders, charging devices are always broken.

You can keep up to date on EV idiocy by following MGUY Australia on YouTube, where our man Simon is never short of content.

President Donald Trump may be sending this back to the Tesla dealership. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)

Neither is Donald Trump, whose EV burn was the single most relatable comment to emerge from last weekend’s volcanic social media combat with former first MAGA mate and Tesla EV billionaire Elon Musk.

“Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Musk “went CRAZY”, Trump added, after “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted.”

Not much chance of a recharge in that particular relationship, but we’ll wait and see.

Meanwhile, in the world of proper transport, the makers of Ram trucks have lately confessed to a terrible error.

The company last year ditched its large-capacity Hemi V8, swapping it for a more fuel-efficient turbo six. Buyers were so infuriated by this move, however, that Ram is bringing back the V8.

In a world dominated by timid eco-symbolism, this is an impressive step.

“Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle it defines you,” Ram Trucks chief executive Tim Kuniskis said last week.

“Ram screwed up when we dropped the Hemi – we own it and we fixed it.”

New V8 models will also feature a new badge, known as the Symbol of Protest.

Just something for Australian Ram buyers to look forward to as they keep their truck of choice atop our US pickup sales charts.

And out of the water – unless they’re sunk by incendiary EVs.