Is There a Charter Clause for EV Cargo?

Not as a standard form — not yet. BIMCO's Documentary Committee only began drafting a dedicated suite of EV carriage clauses in December 2025, and the Carriage of Electric Vehicles Clause 2026 is expected to publish before the end of this year. Until it lands, the largest new cargo risk on a car carrier is allocated by bespoke riders, house terms and default law written for a cargo that did not exist.

What BIMCO is actually drafting

A unified contractual foundation for EV carriage, designed to work back-to-back down the chain. At its meeting on 11 December 2025 the Documentary Committee confirmed a subcommittee was embarking on a suite of dedicated standard clauses for the transport of electric vehicles on ro-ro vessels and car carriers, with containerised carriage and stationary Battery Energy Storage Systems to follow. The scope covers EVs, hybrids, plug-in hybrids and BESS, and the drafting group is deliberately mixed — shipowners, charterers, car and battery manufacturers, P&I clubs and legal experts. Industry consultation opened in April 2026 and the clause returned to the Committee at its 29–30 April session in Copenhagen, described there as a novel contractual project rather than a revision of an existing form.

That composition is the tell. A clause negotiated only between owners and charterers would allocate loss. One that includes the manufacturers and the clubs is trying to allocate information — who declares chemistry, who states a charge level, who warrants condition, and what the ship may refuse.

What a fixture relies on in the meantime

Three instruments, none of which were designed for a deck of lithium packs. The first is the Hague-Visby fire exception at Article IV Rule 2(b), which relieves the carrier of loss caused by fire absent its actual fault or privity. The second is the Article IV Rule 6 dangerous-goods indemnity, under which a shipper who ships dangerous goods without disclosing their nature is strictly liable to the carrier and the cargo may be landed or destroyed. The third, where the charter incorporates it, is the Inter-Club Agreement — clause 8 apportions cargo claims mechanically between unseaworthiness on one side and loading, stowage and handling on the other. Everything else is whatever rider the parties negotiated.

Why the default position is weaker than it reads

Because both carrier defences are conditional on the carrier's own conduct, and one of them barely engages at all. Article IV Rule 6 assumes a shipper failed to disclose a dangerous good — but on a ro-ro with flag-approved vehicle spaces, IMDG Special Provision 961 places the vehicle outside the Code entirely, so there is often no declaration duty to breach. A shipper who told you nothing may have owed you nothing. Meanwhile the fire exception and the Rule 6 indemnity both sit behind the overriding obligation to exercise due diligence to make the ship seaworthy: inadequate detection on the deck, or crew unable to work the fire plan, and the shipper's silence stops rescuing the owner's position.

The Höegh Xiamen is the worked example. The NTSB traced the 4 June 2020 Jacksonville fire to an improperly disconnected vehicle battery — a shore-side failure — yet a USCG sample of 59 loaded vehicles found none secured to the time charterer's own procedure, and the loss ran to the vessel plus 2,420 used vehicles. When the procedure exists but no contract makes anyone verify it, the finding lands on the party that could not prove diligence.

What to write into a fixture before the clause lands

Treat the interim rider as an information contract, not a liability contract, and keep it consistent with what BIMCO is likely to standardise. The gaps worth closing now are the ones the regulation does not fill: SP 961 requires no chemistry, no state of charge and no damage history, and even the new Special Provision 980 — voluntary from 1 January 2027, mandatory from 1 January 2028 — creates a consignor duty to assess condition without a matching duty to transmit what was found. A rider is currently the only route from the terminal gate to the master's cargo knowledge.

• Declaration warranties: chemistry, a stated state-of-charge ceiling, and a flood or accident-damage declaration for used units, warranted by the shipper rather than assumed by the booking.
• An express right to refuse or land a unit that fails condition screening, with the cost consequence stated — the Rule 6 right is not a reliable substitute where SP 961 has removed the declaration duty.
• A seaworthiness annex naming the detection and response capability the owner will maintain, so due diligence is evidenced by a term rather than argued after the casualty.
• Back-to-back drafting down to the sub-charter and the booking note; a warranty that stops at the head fixture leaves the party holding the cargo interface with none of the protection.
• A knock-for-knock or indemnity trigger tied to declaration failure, not to fire causation — causation on a burnt vehicle deck is frequently never established.
• For underwriters: ask to see the rider. An operator contracting for chemistry and SoC is a materially different risk from one relying on the fire exception.

What the clause will and will not settle

It will settle the vocabulary, which is not a small thing — a standard form ends the per-fixture argument about what an EV is, who declares it, and what the ship may refuse, and it gives P&I clubs a consistent wording to underwrite against. What it will not do is import a duty the IMDG Code has not created. A contract can compel a shipper to state a state of charge; it cannot verify one. The verification layer stays operational, and on a deck where the manifest is a vehicle count, per-vehicle thermal and off-gas detection is the only party actually checking the cargo after the ramp closes.

Sources

• 1. BIMCO — 'Documentary Committee adopts new clauses and sets 2026 priorities' (12 December 2025, meeting of 11 December 2025): a subcommittee is embarking on drafting a suite of dedicated standard clauses for the transportation of electric vehicles on board ro-ro vessels and car carriers, with containerised transportation and stationary Battery Energy Storage Systems to follow — bimco.org.
• 2. BIMCO — 'What we are working on': project to develop a suite of dedicated standard clauses for the carriage of electric vehicles and batteries on board ro-ro and container vessels, covering EVs, HEVs, PHEVs and BESS; subcommittee comprises shipowners, charterers, car and battery manufacturers, P&I clubs and legal experts; expected publication 2026 — bimco.org.
• 3. BIMCO — 'Documentary Committee meets on 29 and 30 April' (2026, Copenhagen): the Standard Clause for Carriage of Electric Vehicles is on the agenda and is described as a novel contractual project — bimco.org. [VERIFY: the April 2026 industry consultation launch and the 8 April 2026 registration deadline are reported via search summaries of BIMCO's consultation notice; confirm both dates, and the 'before end of 2026' publication target, against BIMCO's own page before publish.]
• 4. Hill Dickinson — 'Legal considerations when transporting electric vehicles by sea': Article IV Rule 2(b) fire exception applies absent actual fault or privity; the Article IV Rule 6 dangerous-goods indemnity requires the carrier first to demonstrate due diligence to make the ship seaworthy; where the charter incorporates the Inter-Club Agreement, clause 8 apportions cargo claims between unseaworthiness and stowage/handling — hilldickinson.com.
• 5. NTSB — Marine Accident Report MAR-21/04, 'Fire aboard Vehicle Carrier Höegh Xiamen' (Jacksonville, 4 June 2020): fire originated from an improperly disconnected vehicle battery; a USCG sample of 59 loaded vehicles found none with batteries secured to the time charterer's procedure; vessel and 2,420 used vehicles lost, approximately $40M — ntsb.gov.
• 6. IMDG Code Special Provisions 961 and 980: SP 961 places vehicles carried on ro-ro ships with flag-approved vehicle spaces outside the Code where its conditions are met; new SP 980 requires consignors to assess vehicle safety condition before shipment, in Amendment 43-26, voluntary from 1 January 2027 and mandatory from 1 January 2028 — imo.org / bimco.org. [VERIFY: SP 980's final adopted text and dates against the IMO document before publish.]
• 7. Companion RoRoSAFE analysis — 'Who Declares an EV as Dangerous Cargo?' (why SP 961 leaves no declaration to breach), 'Detection Retrofit: Who Pays, Owner or Charterer?' (the capex side of the same fixture), and 'Does an EV Fire Make a Ship Unseaworthy?' (why due diligence decides whether the shipper's failure helps the owner).