Exclusive: Accounting for just 0.2 per cent of the West European new passenger car market during the opening quarter of 2024, or just 7,400 new BYD passenger cars, it is perhaps unsurprising that it appears the next voyage of its BYD Explorer No.1 pure car and truck carrier (PCTC) 7,000 capacity vessel has been dispatched to Brazil rather than Europe.
Using marine traffic shipping tracking software, the BYD Explorer No.1 ship is en route from China to Suape, Brazil. This is likely due to changing import tariffs in Brazil for BEVs which were increased at the start of the year to 10% from zero previously. This will increase to 18 per cent from July and will reach 35% one year later.
According to Fenabrave data, BYD accounted for 4% of the Brazilian new passenger car market during the opening quarter of 2024 with 14,922 new passenger car registrations or twice as many as were recorded across Western Europe during the same period.
During April BYD's Dolphin Mini, unavailable in Europe, made the top 20 most registered models' list, according to Fenabrave data.
On its first voyage, the ship travelled from China around the Cape of Good Hope directly to Europe, unloading 6,000 vehicles in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany.
During the opening quarter of 2024, BYD shipped just under 100,000 passenger cars worldwide, yet just 7,400, or under 10% of that total, were registered on West European roads so far this year. ◼︎︎
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*Western Europe 18 Markets: EU Member States prior to the 2004 enlargement plus EFTA markets Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, plus UK