maiden voyage ceremony
SHENZHEN:
“BYD EXPLORER NO.1,” a vehicle carrier vessel leased to Chinese automaker BYD, held its maiden voyage ceremony on Monday at a port in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province.
With more than 5,000 new energy vehicles (NEVs) on board, it will set sail for the ports of Vlissingen in the Netherlands and Bremerhaven in Germany.
It is the first vessel in the shipping fleet of BYD, which has joined a number of Chinese automakers in accelerating car exports by operating their own shipping fleets. According to China International Marine Containers (Group) Co., Ltd. (CIMC), the vessel was built by CIMC Raffles, a subsidiary of CIMC, for international ship management company Zodiac Maritime, and was leased to BYD.
The vessel was delivered on Tuesday to a construction base in Longkou, east China’s Shandong Province, before sailing to Yantai Port to be loaded with the first batch of 1,389 NEVs. On Sunday, the vessel arrived at Shenzhen and was loaded with the second batch of some 4,000 NEVs. According to China’s General Administration of Customs, China’s auto exports surged to 5.22 million vehicles in 2023, up 57.4 percent year on year. As China’s automobile industry embraces a new export era, automakers are grappling with challenges such as soaring rents, shipping capacity constraints, and intense competition for available car carriers.
