This year, China has replaced Germany as the world's second largest automobile exporter. In the first ten months, China exported more than 2.6 million vehicles, but the number of freighters needed to transport automobiles to Europe and other markets has hardly increased.

Even the decline in demand in October did not break this upward trajectory. Over the same period, the export of automobiles and chassis increased by 60% year on year, reaching 352000 units, a record high of US $7.1 billion.

Recently, in order to ensure that Chinese cars can be transported to the global market, China's two largest car companies have purchased their own ships.

One of them is China's new energy vehicle giant BYD. In order to avoid confusion in the supply chain and transportation, at least six ships were ordered in October, each of which can carry 7700 vehicles at a price of 5 billion yuan (US $710 million).

Coincidentally, SAIC Group, another local state-owned vehicle company in China, has operated the world's fifth largest shipping fleet through its transportation company Anji Logistics, ordering seven new cargo ships, each of which can accommodate 8900 vehicles.

Such a large investment shows that Chinese auto enterprises have made bold investments in the global market demand, because in the past two years, ship orders have often exploded, requiring a long delivery cycle. These ordered ships can only be launched after 2-4 years.

Now, due to the mismatch between supply and demand, shipping costs have soared, and a large amount of investment has poured into the construction of new motor carriers.

As the shortage of chips, the shortage of epidemic related labor force and the control blockade have aggravated the port congestion, the shortage of ships is stretching the supply chain of automobile exports.

As of October, the daily rent of ships (usually called roller ships) that can carry up to 6500 cars has soared to about $100000 a day, more than 10 times that of 2020 and the highest since 2000.

Ships have become "so scarce" and the supply chain is fragile. International shipping experts believe that it is meaningful for auto companies to rescue themselves.

The shortage of ships also means that some ships nearly 30 years old are still in operation rather than scrapped, thus increasing the risk of accidents. Considering the risk of electric vehicle battery fire, it may be more difficult to extinguish any electric vehicle fire.

Tesla, which uses Angie Logistics, also encountered difficulties in export transportation.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said at Tesla's third quarter telephone financial report meeting that "there are not enough ships, trains and cars to support the wave of car delivery at the end of last quarter".

For some export-oriented vehicle enterprises, owning transport resources is a strategic reserve. In fact, it is not uncommon for car companies like BYD and SAIC to invest in transportation. Toyota owns TOYOFUJI shipping company, while Hyundai owns Glovis logistics.

Nowadays, the shipping demand of Chinese automobile enterprises is the epitome of the rapid development of China's automobile exports. Just a few years ago, China mainly sold cars to developing countries in Africa and the Middle East, but the growth of electric vehicles has given Chinese car companies the key to the European market. Europe is now one of the largest markets for China's car exports.

In the first 10 months of this year, China exported 850000 electric vehicles to Europe, while not long ago, almost no exports were made. More than a fifth of them are electric vehicles produced by Tesla in its Shanghai factory.

However, there are also views that it is not wise to buy ships now.

According to an interview with the supply chain information agency by overseas media, "as the automobile market shifts from overstock to the risk of oversupply, the cost of automobile transportation will decrease. As the bottleneck of the supply chain is alleviated, more risks will appear in the demand side."