BYD orders 10 more vessels with capacity for 9,200 cars each, report says

BYD has reportedly ordered 10 additional car carriers, each with a capacity of 9,200 car equivalent units (CEU), according to maritime publications New Ships and shipping platform Robin Assasfina. The reported order would expand its fleet to 18 ships, with a combined capacity to carry more than 130,000 cars.

China Merchants Industry will build the vessels at its Jinling and Haimen shipyards, with deliveries scheduled between 2027 and 2029, according to the reports. The articles do not provide a contract value or include an official announcement from BYD or the shipbuilder.

The ships are described as pure car and truck carriers (PCTCs), designed to transport vehicles. Their capacity is measured in car-equivalent units (CEU) rather than a fixed number of vehicles of any size.

The reported order would add 92,000 CEU of carrying capacity. The additions would bring BYD’s fleet to 18 vessels, with a combined capacity exceeding 130,000 CEU. This measures the fleet’s carrying capacity, rather than the number of cars it could transport over a year.

BYD completed its initial eight-ship fleet in September 2025 when BYD Jinan entered operation, as previously reported by CarNewsChina. The other vessels are Explorer No.1, Hefei, Changzhou, Shenzhen, Xi’an, Changsha, and Zhengzhou.

All the car carriers are RoRo ships, meaning they are designed to carry wheeled cargo – the vehicles roll on/roll off themselves without the need for containers. The eight BYD ships have a capacity of 7,200 or 9,000 cars, depending on the vessel type.

The Shenzhen-based automaker completed the fleet in under two years, starting with Explorer No. 1, delivered to BYD in January 2024. Its builder, CIMC, said the vessel was delivered to the shipping company Zodiac Maritime and chartered to BYD.

As the original fleet of eight RoRo vessels had a reported capacity to export 1 million cars per year, adding 10 new units will bring BYD’s export capacity to 2.5 million cars per year, CarNewsChina estimates.

BYD’s shipping operations also serve factories outside China.

In September 2025, BYD Zhengzhou transported right-hand-drive vehicles from the company’s Thailand plant to the UK, marking BYD’s first vehicle exports from that factory. Thailand, unlike China, is not subject to EU countervailing tariffs imposed on Chinese EV makers after the EC concluded its anti-subsidy investigation last October. BYD is subject to an additional 17% tariff on top of the existing 10% tariff.

BYD exported 184,000 passenger vehicles from China in August, up 131% year-on-year and 6% from July, according to the China Passenger Car Association. It accounted for 35.4% of China’s passenger new energy vehicle exports, a category covering battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. From January to August, BYD’s exports reached 1,127,000 vehicles, up 88% from the same period in 2025.

Meanwhile, BYD is under pressure at home as its main brand sold 184,000 cars in China in August, down 35% from the previous year. In the first eight months of the year, BYD sold 1.15 million vehicles under the BYD brand domestically, down 43% from the same period last year.

Editor’s comment

BYD’s strategy is simple: go global as much as possible and enjoy thick margins overseas, while trying to survive at home, where the brutal price war and overcompetition seem to have no end. There are still over 100 EV brands competing, and everyone waits until some of them start to lose wheels. Just to imagine what is going on: China’s automotive profit margin fell to a low of 3.2% in the first quarter of 2026, according to CPCA. Many global brands, such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan, didn’t survive this massacre: in August, 78% of China’s passenger car sales were domestic brands. In 2020, it was just about 35%, according to CAAM data monitored by China EV DataTracker.