BMW Is Trying To Stop 260 Of Its Own Cars Being Sold

The cars were all on board the Fremantle Highway cargo ship that caught fire last year, but the consortium trying to sell them maintains they’re safe

Mike Bartholomew

02 Jul 2024

It’s not often you hear about a car company actively trying to stop the sale of its own cars, but that’s exactly what BMW’s doing right now. Specifically, it’s trying to halt the sale of 260 brand-new cars that were aboard a cargo ship that caught fire last year.

This saga began when the Fremantle Highway, a Japanese-owned container ship, started to burn off the coast of the Netherlands last July while en route from the port of Bremerhaven in Germany to Port Said in Egypt. Per Dutch newspaper Northern Times, over 3,700 vehicles were on board at the time. While the cause of the fire hasn’t been determined, suggestions that it was an electric car’s battery pack have been debunked.

Autotransporter Fremantle Highway, ausgebrannt durch E-Autos. E-Autos sind Gefahrgut und müssen als solches behandelt werden. Man stelle sich einen E-Auto-Brand auf einer Seefähre vor! 200 Passagiere evakuieren! Schlimme Situation für Kapitän und Besatzung! pic.twitter.com/JsiAe965yG
— Andreas Mrosek (AfD) (@mrosek1958) August 13, 2023

Following the fire, the ship was towed to the Dutch port of Eemshaven for repairs, where its cargo – some of it noticeably charred – was moved onto dry land. Apparently, 260 BMWs – mostly comprising cars from the 3- and 4-series families, based on images – that supposedly made it out relatively or entirely unscathed were acquired by a group of Rotterdam-based companies and businesspeople, via an insurance company based in Taiwan.

This consortium planned to sell them on, something BMW filed an injunction against in December 2023. The case is now being fought out in Dutch courts. The Rotterdam-based group argues that the 260 cars were effectively undamaged, with a bit of soot on their paint the extent of the fire’s effects on them.

BMW, meanwhile, maintains that there is an “enormous” risk associated with the cars, which were declared a total loss. It says their wiring, paint and metalwork all sustained damage, and points to the fact that Mercedes and Audi, both of which also had cars on the ship, sent them to recycling facilities.

The compromise suggested by the group trying to sell the cars is that they’re sold into markets with “less stringent” quality standards, thereby supposedly minimising BMW’s reputational damage, according to Northern Times, but BMW has rejected this idea. A final ruling is expected on 15 July.