BYD: "China’s EV giant says a shortage of ships is holding back its exports"
These are very big boats.
From Rest of World, October 14:
BYD expands EV shipping fleet as wars upend freight costs and key trade routes
China’s BYD is building cars faster than it can export, so it’s adding more ships.
The world’s largest electric vehicle maker will expand its fleet of car-carrying cargo ships to 18 from eight by 2029, according to shipping industry reports. Each new carrier will have the capacity to carry about 9,200 cars and will be built by China Merchants Industry.
Owning its fleet could cut BYD’s cost to ship each car abroad by as much as 40% compared with renting carriers, according to one industry estimate. BYD’s increasing export capacity could help it push further into global markets, intensifying competition for automakers including Tesla and traditional U.S. brands.
Carmakers like BYD, which invested in the sector ahead of the surge, are reaping the rewards of that long-term strategy.”Andrea De Luca, maritime analyst, Veson Nautical
“Carmakers like BYD, which invested in the sector ahead of the surge, are reaping the rewards of that long-term strategy,” Andrea De Luca, a maritime analyst at Boston-based shipping data company Veson Nautical, told Rest of World. “By owning their ships, they can save money compared with chartering at today’s elevated rates, prioritize their most important markets, enter new ones more easily, and depend less on charter market swings.”
BYD did not respond to Rest of World’s request for comment.
Why BYD owns ships In 2022, BYD announced a plan worth $687 million to build its own car carriers, to fix what founder Wang Chuanfu called a shortage of shipping capacity for exports. Between January 2024 and September 2025, the company put eight car carriers into service.
Earlier this year, BYD told investors that a shortage of shipping capacity had held back its exports. In September, the company sold 180,700 cars outside China, more than double a year ago and almost 40% of its monthly total sales....
It's not just China. Elon Musk, who seems to have some insight into the industry, says there will be 10 surviving EV manufacturers, 9 of them Chinese.* And if that's the case, and if Western governments continue on their path of outlawing internal combustion engines, just what the heck are the legacy marques going to be powered by?
BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV)
maker, has taken delivery of two new car-carrying ships – the largest
yet in a growing fleet – as it bets on export growth to counter brutal
competition at home.
The Shenzhen-based company took delivery of
its sixth carrier, the BYD Changsha, which can transport 9,200 vehicles,
on Tuesday, just three days after it received the Xi’an, another vessel
with the same capacity.
The company’s six roll on/roll off
vessels had a combined capacity of 45,600 vehicles, and another two
ships with a combined capacity of 16,200 cars were due for delivery in
coming months, BYD said.
The Xi’an was put to work immediately;
laden with 7,000 EVs, it set sail on Tuesday from Taicang, in eastern
China’s Jiangsu province, bound for European countries including Italy,
the UK, Spain and Belgium, BYD said.
