BYD reportedly orders 10 more car carriers, 9,200-car giants matching the world's second largest

BYD has ordered ten more 9,200-CEU pure car and truck carriers, the same class as its BYD Shenzhen vessel, according to Middle East maritime magazine Robban Assafina, which cited multiple supply chain sources and quotation information on LinkedIn, though the automaker has not officially confirmed the deal.

Once the new ships are delivered, BYD's operated fleet will expand to 18 vessels with combined capacity above 130,000 vehicles, and the order doubles down on a strategy the automaker has pursued since 2022, when it began building its own fleet to secure shipping capacity as overseas expansion accelerated, making it one of the Chinese automakers with the largest self-built fleets.

The ten ships will be built by China Merchants Industry at its Jinling and Haimen yards, with deliveries running from 2027 to 2029, and all will use LNG dual-fuel propulsion, with each carrying 9,200 standard car slots, making them the second-largest car carriers in operation worldwide, behind only the 10,800-car LNG vessel that CSSC Guangzhou Shipyard International built for Korea's HMM.

The order also underscores how Chinese shipyards now dominate the global car-carrier building market at a time when vehicle exports keep climbing, since the same yards are already busy filling orders for other Chinese automakers and shipping lines scrambling for tonnage.

Chinese automakers have moved from renting shipping space to owning the entire logistics chain, and BYD's jump to 9,200-car giants is both a hedge against the ro-ro freight rates that spiked during the export boom and a guarantee of capacity headroom as China's car exports keep growing, with the fleet expansion tracking the same curve as BYD's overseas sales.