BYD accomplished its huge fleet of eight vessels and reached an annual transport capability of over 1 million automobiles. The ultimate automobile service to affix the fleet, BYD Jinan, went into operation final week, the corporate introduced on WeChat.
The Shenzhen-based automaker accomplished the fleet in underneath two years. The primary vessel, BYD Explorer No. 1, was delivered in January 2024.
All of the automobile carriers are RoRo ships, which means they’re designed to hold wheeled cargo – the autos roll on/roll off themselves with out the necessity for containers. BYD ships have a capability of seven,200 or 9,000 automobiles based mostly on the kind of vessel.
The BYD fleet checklist:
- BYD Explorer No.1
- BYD Hefei
- BYD Changzhou
- BYD Shenzhen
- BYD Xi’an
- BYD Changsha
- BYD Zhengzhou
- BYD Jinan
Except for the newly launched Jinan, all seven ships are already supplying the world with BYD merchandise. BYD Hefei is presently unloading automobiles in Europe earlier than returning to China. BYD Xi’an is predicted to reach in Barcelona later this week. BYD Shenzhen and Changsha are additionally on their manner from China to Europe.
However BYD isn’t exporting simply China-made automobiles. BYD Zhengzhou, with a capability of seven,000 autos, introduced BYD right-hand drive automobiles from Thailand to the UK this week and is now en path to unload in Belgium, in line with MarineTraffic knowledge shared by Felix Hamer. That is the primary time BYD has exported automobiles from its Thailand plant.
Thailand, in contrast to China, isn’t topic to EU countervailing tariffs imposed on Chinese language EV makers after the EC concluded its anti-subsidy investigation final October. BYD is topic to an additonal 17% tariff on prime of the prevailing 10% tariff.
Nonetheless, BYD doesn’t rely solely on its Chinese language crops for abroad gross sales. On July 1, BYD started manufacturing at its Brazilian plant, with the primary Seagull hatchback rolling off the road. The automaker additionally constructed its first European automobile plant in Hungary; nevertheless, the Szeged facility isn’t but operational, as the corporate has delayed mass manufacturing till 2026. BYD can also be constructing an EV plant in Pakistan, which is scheduled to enter operation in 2026. In Uzbekistan, manufacturing began already in June 2024. All these crops are knock-down kits (KD), which means the automobile is introduced in as components from China and assembled regionally. BYD claims it desires to realize a excessive degree of localisation.
BYD faces declining gross sales in its home market, and solely its abroad gross sales forestall a sharper fall. In August, the abroad gross sales grew 157% to 80,813 autos YoY, whereas China gross sales fell 22% to 284,005 automobiles for the BYD model.
BYD plans to realize 20% of its gross sales in 2025 from abroad markets, focusing on the sale of 1 million autos exterior China. In 2025 thus far, January – September, BYD offered 697,072 autos exterior China.
