Can Giant Cargo Ships Run on Batteries?

Let’s compare the prices of bunker fuel, batteries and ammonium for a median loaded container ship traveling 500 miles.

 

For a median-sized container ship (roughly 5,000–8,000 TEU) traveling 500 miles in 2025/2026, bunker fuel remains the most cost-effective option, while green ammonia is significantly more expensive and battery power is generally not feasible for that range due to cost and cargo space limitations.

Based on 2025 market projections, here is the price comparison for a 500-mile journey:

 

Cost Comparison (Estimated for 500 Miles)

 

    Bunker Fuel (VLSFO): ~$15,000 – $25,000

 

        Rationale: A 7,000+ TEU vessel burns ~150-200 tons/day. At ~20 knots, 500 miles takes ~24 hours. With 2025 VLSFO prices at ~$585/MT, fuel cost is relatively low.

 

    Green Ammonia: ~$40,000 – $70,000

 

        Rationale: Green ammonia is 2–3 times more expensive per ton than VLSFO and requires ~2.5 times the volume due to lower energy density.

 

    Batteries: Prohibitively High ($100M+ capital cost)

 

        Rationale: For a 500-mile trip, a container ship would need an immense battery bank, costing over $100M in capital, making it unfeasible for long-range, high-speed, 500-mile journeys.

 

Detailed Breakdown

 

    Bunker Fuel (VLSFO - 0.5% S): The standard in 2025, with prices forecast to average around $585/MT to $596/MT in 2025.

    Green Ammonia: While it has zero-carbon potential, it is currently not cost-competitive with VLSFO. Green ammonia ranges from $820-$930/MT. Furthermore, to travel the same distance, a ship requires 2.5 times more ammonia by volume than VLSFO.

    Batteries (Electric): Battery-electric propulsion is primarily used for short-sea shipping (e.g., <100 miles). For a 500-mile journey, the required battery capacity would consume too much cargo capacity and capital (e.g., $182M for energy containers in some studies), making it 10–20x more expensive in capital than traditional propulsion.

 

Note: The cost of conventional fuels is increasing due to environmental regulations like the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) and FuelEU Maritime, which can add significant premiums in 2025/2026, though they remain cheaper than green alternatives.

 

 

“Any readers considering a life on the high seas can assess their career options at maritime-zone.com. It lists more than 30 openings for the position of wiper. You'd make about $1,500 a month.

 

"The job is to wipe oil that's leaking out of an engine," says marine engineer turned entrepreneur Steven Henderson. "Working on a ship in the middle of the ocean is brutal."

 

Unromantic about what life is like for most seafarers, Henderson dreams of making automated battery-powered container ships with no crew at all. For now, his company makes big batteries. Fleetzero recently opened a factory in Houston and just raised $43 million from investors including shipping giant Maersk to expand its manufacturing capacity.

 

How much of the shipping industry could run on batteries is debated, but the fact there is a debate shows how rapidly batteries have improved. Until the past few years, the kind used in electric cars were viewed as too expensive, heavy and bulky for ships. Now they are powering ferries in Norway's fjords and container ships on China's rivers.

 

Fleetzero doesn't manufacture the battery cells itself. It buys those from companies in China and elsewhere, and packages them in fridge-size units that are designed to minimize fire risk without using too much space.

 

The company's early customers will run hybrid ships. They include tanker owner AET, which commissioned batteries for a vessel that will shepherd bigger ships into the Gulf of Mexico, which the U.S. now calls the Gulf of America. The batteries will have about as much capacity as 200 Tesla Model 3s, and a 500-mile range without using the diesel engine. Fleetzero's Houston factory currently has enough capacity to make about 25 such systems a year.

 

Ships generally burn bunker fuel, the tar-like residue left after refineries extract higher-value products from oil. It's dirty but energy-dense; big ships can go more than 10,000 miles on a tank.

 

Experts generally say the best green replacement would be another liquid -- perhaps ammonia, which can be emissions-free, even if it's highly explosive. But those options are expensive and won't take off without penalties for pollution. The Trump administration torpedoed a global tax on ship emissions, and ship owners are still commissioning fossil-fueled ships.

 

Absent tougher regulations, greener options must be cheap. Batteries' improving cost and energy density (capacity relative to weight) means they could eventually power giant vessels, said Santiago Yanez, who works on new technologies at AET.

 

Counterintuitively, electrifying long routes would be harder for small ships, because they carry less tonnage for their size. The answer could be port stops or even (as an academic recently proposed) ships being propelled by smaller battery vessels. Alternatively, hybrids could become the norm.

 

"Even if Fleetzero goes away tomorrow, in 20 years every ship being built will have batteries," Henderson said. "It's just economics and physics."

 

That would mean an industry transformed, with access to power, rather than an oil refinery, influencing where ships dock. Electric ships, with simpler propulsion systems, would need less maintenance -- meaning less work for wipers.” [1]

 

1. Can Giant Cargo Ships Run on Batteries? Ballard, Ed.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 16 Jan 2026: B10.