Recently, according to a report released by the China Passenger Car Market Information Association, China's automobile exports will exceed 5 million units in 2023, surpassing Japan for the first time and becoming the world's largest exporter of automobiles. Although in the export data, fuel vehicles are still the absolute main force of the domestic automobile industry's exports, but the growth rate of new energy vehicle exports is very rapid.
Among them, BYD, the domestic new energy vehicle sales champion, the total sales volume in 2023 exceeded the 3 million mark, and the export volume has also increased significantly. It is reported that BYD will last year 2420,000 new energy vehicles were sold overseas, a year-on-year increase of 334%. At present, BYD passenger cars have entered 59 overseas countries and regions, in Europe alone, BYD has opened more than 230 stores, and its Han, Tang, Yuan Plus, Seal and Dolphin models are widely welcomed by the market.
However, the hot sales in overseas markets have also brought "happy troubles" to BYD - the rent of car ro-ro carriers is getting more and more expensive, and this year it once reached 150,000 US dollars per day.
To this end, Wang Chuanfu shot, according to industry insiders, BYD will build 6 to 8 LNG dual-fuel pure car carriers with a capacity of 7700 cars, with a total cost of nearly 5 billion yuan, otherwise it can be seen that BYD wants to be the "ship boss" by itself, build a car and buy a car one-stop service, and remove the "middleman" to save the price difference.
It is difficult to rent a ship, it is expensive to rent a ship, and BYD builds its own ship
A few days ago, the car carrier "BYD Explorer 1", which was built by China and specially used for the export of domestic cars, slowly sailed to Europe after being fully loaded with BYD cars in Xiaomo Port in Shenzhen. As the first ship of BYD's automobile export fleet, the delivery of "BYD Explorer No. 1" has opened a new era of "national car self-transport".
It is reported that as early as 2022, BYD has invested 5 billion yuan to build 8 dual-fuel car carriers that can carry 7,700 cars, and according to the outside world, according to the strong overseas demand of BYD Automobile, Wang Chuanfu is likely to further expand BYD's fleet size and build more car carriers in the future.
Behind BYD's personal "going to sea" shipbuilding, there is now an increasingly high cost of shipping. According to the Financial Times, the number of international car carriers is already stretched, with more car carriers scrapped in 2020 than in any year since 2016 due to market disruptions caused by the pandemic, while many replacement vehicle carriers are not expected to be ready for the next three years.
However, today's international car shipping market is extremely hot, with the number of cars transported internationally across oceans increasing by 17% to a record high of 23.4 million units in 2023 alone. The demand for transoceanic transportation has made car carriers a sought-after cargo, so much so that a ship is hard to find, and rentals have soared. Today, the daily charter cost of a car ro-ro ship has climbed to $12More than 50,000 US dollars, it can be called a proper "sea money machine".
The rent is expensive, and the number of transport ships is scarce, resulting in many car companies can only line up the "schedule" of car carriers, which seriously affects the delivery speed and customer experience of cars. From September to October last year, for example, the share of Chinese brand cars in the European market was "stagnant", which was largely attributed to transportation problems, and the untimely transportation of cars and the prolonged delivery time also caused complaints from some consumers.
Therefore, for a car company that aims to the global market, although BYD has been planning to build factories in Europe, whether it is the formation of the factory or the completion of the first system, it is not an overnight thing, so at present, in order to further seize the market opportunity and improve the quality of new car delivery, BYD chooses to be the "ship boss", which can not only save a large amount of booking rent, but also allow itself to grasp the self-sufficiency of automobile shipping.
Buying ships independently has become an industry consensus
In addition to BYD, many car companies that have gone overseas have realized that the high rent of international car ro-ro carriers has become a big cost burden, and a car is transported from China to Europe, and car companies bear high transportation costs. With the soaring volume of China's automobile exports, the real money spent by various car companies on transporting vehicles every year has accumulated into a staggering figure. In this context, many car companies have begun to build their own ships and buy ships to alleviate the shortage of transportation capacity and the problem of expensive freight.
In 2007, the domestic Chery Automobile had already taken action to include the poorly managed Wuhu Shipyard, and many people felt that Chery was not doing its job properly and was doing a good job of building ships across the border. However, with the improvement of the competitiveness of domestic automobiles and the introduction of large-scale new energy subsidies in Europe and the United States, the export of domestic automobiles has become unstoppable, among them, especially Chery Automobile, which will export 93 automobiles in 202370,000 units, an eightfold increase in four years.
It is reported that the Wuhu shipyard has been in full swing to build three 7,000-parking LNG dual-fuel car carriers for Chery, and as soon as next year, Chery will have its own car transport fleet.
As the largest domestic export car company, SAIC Motor also reached an agreement with China State Shipbuilding Group in 2022, and the Jiangnan Shipyard under the latter will "tailor-made" ocean car carriers for SAIC. It is reported that with the current construction and delivery speed of Jiangnan Shipyard, by 2026, the scale of SAIC's self-operated automobile transport fleet will reach 14, and the total investment scale will also reach the level of 10 billion.
Like Chery, GAC also chose to build its own shipbuilding, and GAC Commerce, a subsidiary of GAC Group, and China Merchants Shipping invested in the establishment of Guangzhou Merchants Ro-Ro Transportation Company, ready to build and transport vehicles by themselves.
Before the boom of "buying ships" and "shipbuilding" by domestic car companies, Chinese car companies basically paid little attention to building their own car fleets, so most of the world's largest car carrier shipping companies are shipowners in Japan, Europe and the United States. Moreover, looking at the well-known car companies in Japan and South Korea and other countries, most of them are deeply bound to their own shipping companies, so compared with Chinese car companies, their capacity can often be more guaranteed.
Now, with the entry of BYD's big-name shipowners, the car capacity of Chinese car companies will be significantly improved, and the transport ship orders of domestic car companies will be delivered one after another, and the export of Chinese cars is bound to be like a tiger.
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