BYD reportedly orders 10 more car carriers, with its own ships tipped to reach NZ from late 2027

BYD has reportedly ordered 10 more pure car and truck carriers, each with capacity for 9,200 vehicles, and its New Zealand distributor expects the brand’s own ships to start delivering here from late 2027 or early 2028.

The order is reported by maritime publication New Ships, citing shipping industry sources, and has not been officially confirmed by BYD or the shipbuilder. No contract value has been disclosed.

China Merchants Industry is to build the vessels at its Jinling and Haimen yards, with deliveries phased between 2027 and 2029. Once complete, BYD’s fleet would grow from eight ships to 18, with combined capacity of more than 130,000 car equivalent units, the industry’s measure of how many vehicles a carrier holds.

BYD completed its first eight-ship fleet in September 2025 with the delivery of BYD Jinan. The existing vessels, including Explorer No.1, Hefei, Changzhou, Shenzhen, Xi’an, Changsha and Zhengzhou, carry between 4,000 and 9,200 vehicles each. The company has said that fleet is capable of exporting around one million cars a year, and BYD shipped 184,000 cars out of China in August alone, more than a third of the country’s electrified exports.

The ships are roll-on, roll-off carriers with LNG dual-fuel engines, and BYD has fitted them with its own Blade Battery systems to supply onboard power.

Shipping capacity out of China is currently tight for the New Zealand market, with the much larger Australian market absorbing much of the available space on car carriers. In some cases vehicles bound for Australia are shipped to New Zealand first before being sent on across the Tasman, a practice known as transshipping. BYD’s record 2,750-car shipment in August arrived on a chartered vessel.

BYD New Zealand country manager Warren Willmot says the fleet expansion is good news for a distant market.

“It’s encouraging to see BYD continuing to invest in cleaner, more sustainable vehicle shipping through the expansion of its roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) fleet. Shipping remains one of the biggest challenges for New Zealand due to our distance from key manufacturing plants, and we’re hopeful BYD vessels will begin delivering vehicles here from late 2027 or early 2028.

“These state-of-the-art ships, powered by hybrid LNG technology and advanced Blade Battery systems, represent an important step towards reducing emissions across the automotive supply chain and supporting our broader sustainability goals.”

BYD announced plans for its own shipping fleet in 2022, describing it as a “maritime bridge” for its export growth, and has said owning vessels cuts its per-vehicle shipping cost by 30 to 40% compared with third-party charters. The timing Willmot describes lines up with the 15 models BYD says it will bring to New Zealand over the next 18 months, and with the brand’s move to build cars in Hungary and, reportedly, a budget EV for Europe, which would free ships from China for markets like this one.