Cargo ship containing Porsche, Audi, Bentley vehicles catches fire in the Atlantic!

As if the already dire production capabilities of the auto industry weren’t under massive troubles thanks to the global chip shortage, the VW group is going to have to suffer that bit more! A ship carrying thousands of VW Group cars like Audi, Porsche, Bentley and more are just floating in the oceans without any crew. Image credits go to Marine Insight.

The ship sent out a distress signal off the coast of Portugal while on its way in transit from Germany to the US. All the crew members onboard have been evacuated thanks to an early distress signal sent out by them when a fire broke out in one of the cargo decks. The ship though, is still burning and floating on the seas without a crew and an estimate suggests it was transporting around 4000 VW group vehicles.

The German automaker confirmed this in a statement to Insider via e-mail stating “We are aware of an incident today involving a cargo ship transporting Volkswagen Group vehicles across the Atlantic. At this time, we are not aware of any injuries. We are working with local authorities and the shipping company to investigate the cause of the incident.” Moreover, a spokesperson for Porsche confirmed that ‘a number of’ Porsche vehicles are also onboard the ship.

There is currently no cause found as to why the fire started, or by when it will be doused. This will most certainly not be in any way shape or form pleasant news for those customers whose cars are now stuck on a burning vessel in the Atlantic, though all the companies involved should ideally offer some sort of compensation to them. Hopefully, cars can still be salvaged from this fire- if the cars are destroyed it would be a massive blow in a time when the auto industry is already suffering from chip shortages.