BYD Buys Another 10 Ships, Not Planning to Wait for Others to Go Overseas

On October 19, BYD Executive Vice President Li Ke confirmed in an interview in Belgium: the company bought another 10 car transport ships. The total value of this order exceeds $1 billion, with a single ship price over $100 million, scheduled for delivery between 2029 and 2031. Once all new ships are in place, BYD's own fleet will increase from 8 to 18 ships, with total capacity exceeding 130,000 CEU.

This is not the first time BYD has bought ships. In 2022, the first batch of 8 Ro-Ro ships was initiated, with a total investment of about 5 billion yuan. They were all put into operation in September 2025, including Pioneer 1, Changzhou, Hefei, Shenzhen, etc. Among them, Shenzhen is currently the world's largest car Ro-Ro ship, capable of loading 9,200 standard vehicles.

From 8 ships to 18 ships, from guaranteeing basic capacity to supporting global expansion, the significance of this matter goes far beyond buying a few more ships.

Why is BYD in a rush to buy ships? The direct reason is that the export volume is growing too fast.

In September 2026, BYD's overseas sales reached 180,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 154%, accounting for 39% of the total sales for that month. From January to September, cumulative exports totaled 1.338 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 92%. BYD had already raised the annual export target from 1.3 million vehicles to 1.5 million vehicles in March 2026. At this growth rate, relying on rented ships or depending on third-party shipping companies carries too much uncertainty.

Global Ro-Ro ship capacity is already tight. In June 2026, the one-year charter rate for medium-to-large car transport ships had risen to $70,000 per day, a 65% increase from $42,500 at the end of 2025. The daily rent for some 6,500-vehicle-space Ro-Ro ships even reached $80,000. Some institutions estimate that about 1 million Chinese vehicles, due to insufficient Ro-Ro ship capacity, were forced to switch to container ship transport.

High rental costs are one thing, but more crucially, delivery schedules are subject to others' control. Cars are built, but ships are not scheduled, so overseas dealers and users have to wait. For a brand rapidly expanding its overseas market, this waiting cost is higher than the rent itself. Building a self-owned fleet is essentially buying certainty: when to dispatch ships, where to dispatch them, what cars to load, the company decides itself.

Li Ke's timing of confirming this order is also noteworthy. She was interviewed in Belgium, while Europe is one of the markets with the most rapid growth for BYD overseas. The delivery cycle for the new ships is 2029 to 2031, meaning BYD is paving the way for overseas scale three to five years in advance, not an emergency measure, but planning.

Placing the matter of buying ships into the coordinate system of BYD brand development, it marks an identity shift.

In the past, for Chinese automakers going overseas, the core capability was to build a competitive car, then hand it over to shipping companies for transport and local dealers for sale. The carmaker's role was concentrated on the product end, while logistics and channels relied more on external systems. This model was efficient when export volumes were small, but when a brand's annual export scale approaches the two million vehicle level, any uncontrollable link in any link will be magnified.

BYD's choice is to hold the key links in its own hands. The fleet is one step; overseas factories are another step. The Thailand factory is already in production; the Brazil factory went into production in July 2025 with an initial annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles; the Hungary factory plans to launch Phase 1 with 150,000 vehicle capacity in Q2 2026, with annual overseas localization capacity expected to break 500,000 vehicles. Building ships and building factories, one manages flow, the other manages landing, combined they form a complete set of overseas infrastructure.

The most direct value brought by this infrastructure is supply chain resilience. In the first half of 2026, factors such as Red Sea situation, port congestion, capacity tightness, etc., repeatedly disturbed global automotive logistics; whoever has ships has the initiative. BYD's self-built fleet, during capacity shortages, is not subject to rent fluctuations and cabin allocation; after vehicles leave the production line, they can be shipped according to their own rhythm, providing more stable expectations for parts supply and complete vehicle delivery of overseas factories.

Looking deeper, controlling the logistics link also supports brand elevation. BYD is no longer selling low-price cars in Europe; models like Seal, Dolphin, Denza, etc., have entered the core areas of mainstream joint venture brands. High-end brands require higher delivery experience; if cars arrive at the port but cannot be picked up, or wait for ships for months, the damage to brand reputation far exceeds an order. A self-owned fleet makes delivery schedules predictable, which for a Chinese carmaker establishing global brand recognition, the value is hard to measure by freight rate differences.

BYD buying ships, viewed within the big picture of Chinese automotive exports, represents a switch in a stage.

Chinese car exports surpassed Japan to become number one globally in 2023, but prior overseas expansion was mostly product export, relying on cost-performance and product strength. By 2025 and 2026, the overseas sales scale of leading carmakers had become so large that relying solely on third-party logistics and local dealer systems could no longer support it; the core of competition began to extend from the product level to the system level.

SAIC, Chery, Changan, and other carmakers have already placed orders for own transport ships; BYD currently leads by a margin in scale and speed. This race is not a simple arms race; it reflects a common judgment: for Chinese automobiles to truly stand firm in the global market, they cannot just build cars well, but must also transport cars well, deliver well, and serve well.

Ro-Ro ship capacity tightness is a global structural problem, and Chinese automotive export growth rate is far higher than the expansion speed of the global Ro-Ro fleet. Under this supply-demand mismatch, whoever first establishes their own controllable deep-sea transport capability gains an extra layer of safety cushion in overseas expansion. BYD's 18-ship fleet, while not the largest in the global automotive shipping pattern, is already a scaled deep-sea capacity among Chinese carmakers.

More worth attention is the technical choice for new ships. This time, 9,200 CEU LNG powered car transport ships are ordered, adopting a dual-fuel propulsion system. LNG power is significantly superior to traditional fuel in carbon and sulfur oxide emissions. European ports have stricter requirements for ship emissions; choosing LNG power is not just a transport tool upgrade, but also preparing compliance for entering markets with higher environmental standards. Chinese automotive exports have reached today where even emission standards of transport ships begin to enter the scope of consideration; this itself is a footnote to system capability improvement.

Auto Review:

10 ships, $1 billion, delivery schedule arranged to 2031. If this account is calculated only based on freight rates, it is hard to calculate clearly. But if it is placed in the overall picture of BYD's global layout, the logic becomes clear: product export relies on cars, system export relies on ships, factories, and a global network one can control.

Chinese automotive brands' overseas stories over the past few decades mostly stayed at the level of selling cars. BYD buying ships indicates leading players are already thinking about the next step: after cars are sold, how to transport them, how to deliver them to users, how to make the whole link not subject to others. These problems have no shortcuts, only building ship by ship, a port by port.

Direction is correct, the rest is time. And BYD obviously does not plan to let others decide this time.