A Chinese built EV or hybrid will be headed your way soon.
10 liquefied-natural-gas dual-fuel pure car and truck carriers (PCTCs), each rated at 8,200 car-equivalent units (CEU). Total contract value: more than US$1 billion. Delivery window: 2029–2031. The buyer was not named in the filing — but the market is reading it, almost unanimously, as BYD.
If confirmed at delivery, the order would more than double BYD’s owned ocean fleet. The company currently operates eight car carriers — the first batch it ordered in 2022 for roughly RMB 5 billion (about US$687 million), now largely in service. Adding ten new 8,200-CEU ships pushes BYD’s controlled fleet toward roughly 18 vessels, with combined annual capacity well above 2 million vehicles.
The math is brutal. BYD exported 1,046,083 vehicles in 2025. In the first seven months of 2026 it shipped 972,794 — up 78.49% year on year — with July alone at 180,538, a monthly record. Full-year 2026 exports are on track for roughly 1.8 million.
Its eight owned ships cover only about a quarter to a third of that volume; the rest rides on chartered or third-party vessels. That gap is exactly why a second batch makes sense. Owning tonnage also insulates BYD from spot-market freight spikes — after Middle East tensions pushed Europe-bound auto freight toward RMB 20,000 per vehicle — and protects delivery timelines in markets like Australia, where BYD says its own ships cut wait times from the industry norm of 12–18 months. (Context: Sina Auto, 2026-08-25.)
BYD is not alone. SAIC’s Anji Logistics already runs 20+ foreign-trade RoRos with roughly 500,000–600,000 units of annual capacity and a target of 22 ships by end-2026; Chery operates three. The car carrier has become a strategic moat: once a carmaker’s export volume clears ~100,000 units a year, owning ships pays back in about three years while locking in core-route capacity.