That sucking sound after EU member states voted to slap tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles is ricocheting across the seas. Just as Chinese EVs have increased on the world’s roads, so too have they filled ships to journey from factories to motorists.
Total seaborne car shipments this year will come in about 25mn, up 17 per cent on pre-Covid 2019, reckons Clarksons, a maritime consultancy. Roughly a fifth of that comes from China and about one in eight are EVs.
Ro-ro vessels, on to which new vehicles roll on and roll off with minimal handling, have ridden this wave. Oslo-listed Wallenius Wilhelmsen, which operates about 128 ro-ro vessels, just posted a record quarter. Net freight rates rose from $56 per cubic metre in 2023 to $60 in the first half of this year, it said. Irish Continental Group reported a year-on-year 13 per cent increase in car volumes for the period to August 24.