Misinformation on social media, combined with official guidance, is fuelling confusion over whether hybrid and electric vehicles can use Australian vehicle ferries, potentially creating unnecessary delays as sales continue to grow.
The K’gari island car ferry that transports 4WD adventurers from the mainland to Kingfisher Bay treats electrified vehicles differently from those powered purely by petrol or diesel – as we discovered recently.
Any EV or hybrid is loaded last on the ferry, then placed near the drawbridge. An island-operated van is then positioned behind it so it can push the car off in the event of a fire.
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The overly cautious setup is indicative of misinformation swirling about vehicles that use lithium ion batteries.
A spate of fires in e-bikes and e-scooters has some believing EVs are likely to spontaneously explode, a claim not supported by broader vehicle fire data.
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That’s despite global data reaffirming that EVs have a lower fire risk than cars powered by fossil fuels.
But the bigger issue with rules such as that on the K’gari ferry is what it means with the imminent influx of hybrids and plug-in hybrids to the EV space.
Many Chinese brands are either already selling or planning to bring in more hybrid off-roaders, both SUVs and utes.
And while Toyota doesn’t use the H word with its new Prado 250-Series, the popular model now comes with a lithium-ion battery as part of its mild hybrid system.
If a Ford Ranger PHEV, BYD Shark 6, GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV and a couple of new Prados line up for the K’gari ferry, it’ll leave that gear van with a near-impossible task if multiple vehicles needed to be moved in an emergency.
Perhaps the more laughable part of it is the potential danger posed by a lithium-ion battery in a hybrid compared to the auxiliary battery systems that many off-road adventurers fit to their 4WD.
Such aftermarket systems can easily exceed 100Ah, or 1.2kWh.
That’s much smaller than your average EV battery (typically 50-100kWh) and even pales compared with most PHEVs (typically 10-40kWh).
But it’s a bigger than the batteries in many hybrids.
The battery capacity in the latest Prado 250-Series (Toyota doesn’t even call it a hybrid, instead referring to it as a 48V assist system), for example, is about 0.2kWh. Yep, it’s tiny.
And we’re guessing the engineering work that went into its manufacture and fitment to the car is more intensive and rigorous than that applied to the average aftermarket auxiliary battery.
So why aren’t those aftermarket systems treated with the same fear and caution as a hybrid?
We reckon the interweb has a fair bit to do with that…
It’s also not just the K’gari ferry with specific rules for EVs and hybrids.
The ferry operator for K’gari, Sealink, also runs car ferries to other locations, including Kangaroo Island, Rottnest Island, Magnetic Island and Stradbroke Island.
The company has a policy to load vehicles with high voltage batteries in “designated positions on the vessel”, warning that “these spaces are limited”. It’s covered off in the company’s FAQs on its website.
The company references the government’s Australian Maritime Safety Authority safety alert from 2023 that made 12 recommendations to ferry operators.
It also warns of potential delays for drivers who don’t alert the company to a hybrid or EV system.
We’d suggest such rules will cause issues on those services in the near future.
The PHEV off-roaders already on the market and the influx of new ones could cause significant queues of people wanting to get their cars into those limited spaces.
Those queues will start with Toyota Prados and BYD Shark 6s.
