Felicity Ace fire to generate losses exceeding $155m for major carmakers, says Russell

A fire on the Felicity Ace cargo ship is expected to generate a minimum of $155 million losses for automotive giants Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, and Lamborghini, according to risk solutions company  Russell.

The Felicity Ace ship was travelling from Emden, Germany where Volkswagen has a large factory to Davisville in Rhode Island, US, and sailing off the coast of Portugal’s Azores Islands when the fire broke out.

Russell said the ship was carrying more than 4,000 cars according to various news sources.

German media reports showed that the ship was carrying 3,965 vehicles of the Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, and Lamborghini brands. Porsche confirmed that 1,100 of their cars were on board the ship.

The total value of goods on the ship is estimated to be $438 million and of that an estimated $401 million was for cars and goods vehicles, according to Russell’s analysis.

Suki Basi (pictured), Russell Group managing director said: “These figures showed once again the precariousness of global supply chains. The incident comes at a bad time for global carmakers who are in the middle of a supply chain crisis sourcing semiconductors, resulting in new delays for new cars. An event like this will not do a great deal in instilling trust with consumers.

“Using our ALPS Scenario Factory, we identified that the Volkswagen brand and its subsidiaries do indeed have a significant exposure to this event, running into the millions.

“With so much uncertainty in the global trade landscape, our view has always has been those corporate entities and their insurers will need good near real-time data combined with a strong analytical interpretation of those insights to ensure that they navigate a way through potential disruption.”

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