If it happens to you near some port in Belgium or Germany (but not only) you may find yourself faced with something you don’t expect: rows and rows of Chinese cars parked on the quay. These are not the vehicles of port employees or tourists ready to board some cruise ship: they are all new cars, displayed as if they were in a large open-air dealership. It’s a shame that there are no resellers on the docks of the ports of Belgium or Germany. So what are all those neatly parked vehicles doing there? The answer may seem banal but it highlights one of the biggest current problems in the automotive sector: those cars, coming from China, are waiting to be placed elsewhere. And we are not talking about a few dozen cars but about thousands and thousands of Chinese cars which are currently abandoned in parts of northern Europe.
Why are there thousands of Chinese cars abandoned in Northern European ports?
The Financial Times also dealt with the problem of the thousands of Chinese cars that are, in fact, abandoned in Northern European ports, researching the causes of this problem. The reason why all these cars remain parked on the docks of the ports is that in the Old Continent there are not enough drivers for the car transporters who can quickly collect all those cars and take them to their destination in the various dealerships around the various countries.
And the shortage of hauliers also has this as a consequence delays in deliveries of the cars to the customers who purchased them: the fact that all those cars are parked in European ports, in fact, does not only create inconveniences for the infrastructures that host them but also for the producers and motorists who bought those cars and are waiting to guide them. But also to the dealers who are waiting for them and then perhaps resell them for immediate delivery.
Electric cars: Chinese companies want to expand into Europe
At this point it is natural to ask ourselves another question: why did Europe find itself unprepared for the arrival of so many Chinese cars from China? To find an answer to this question they must be analyzed data from the Chinese market. All those cars that we now find in European ports are mostly electric cars: in the eastern country there has been this in recent months a gradual slowdown in sales of zero-emission cars. In practice, Chinese car manufacturers have found themselves with a greater number of electric cars produced than have actually been purchased by motorists.
Precisely this excess production has given an expansionist push to the eastern car manufacturers, who are trying to increasingly flood the market and acquire an important portion of customers also in Europe. This is why more and more ships full of electric cars have started to leave China and arrive in the old continent. It’s a shame that, as we said, the shortage of drivers for car transporters has created a series of logistical problems but not only that.
Electric cars: China is trying to increasingly expand its market
However, the slowdowns in deliveries of cars shipped to Europe are not slowing down the desire of Chinese car manufacturers to expand their customers to the Old Continent and, more generally, to the rest of the world.
Suffice it to say that in recent months there have been new trade routes. What if China is currently the eighth largest nation in terms of number of ships intended for the transport of cars, it is expected that in the coming years it will gain other positions in this ranking to become the first nation in the world for the number of ships intended for the transport of cars. The Chinese fleet can currently count on thirty-three ships registered but there are some forty-seven more (more than double the current ones) which they are currently under construction.
These new ships to be set sail for ports all over the world, including European ones, have also been commissioned by the same car manufacturers, such as for example the BYD (one of those that is expanding most in the European market). Until now, car manufacturers rented ships intended for the transport of cars, but one can understand that the fact that they now become owners can only mean that the companies’ intention is to expand more and more.
In short, those thousands of cars currently parked on the quays of European ports seem to cause concern more than anything for Europeans, who are looking for solutions to sort them. The problems that have also arisen for Chinese car manufacturers are not putting a brake on Chinese production.
How does Europe respond to the problem of Chinese electric cars abandoned in ports? A job opportunity for many
But if China, as we have said, has no intention of slowing down the production of electric cars for export and has every intention of continuing to expand its market, how does Europe intend to respond? It certainly cannot be imagined that in the coming years the ports of the Old Continent will be transformed into giant open-air car showrooms ready to host more and more cars.
The shortage of car transporter drivers is a problem that must be urgently addressed in the Old Continent, also because those transported at the moment to work certainly cannot be used only to collect the large amount of cars coming from the East from the ports but are also needed to European car manufacturers to transport the cars that are produced here in Europe.
Here then the problem of the thousands of electric cars abandoned in the ports of Northern Europe can turn into an opportunity to create jobs in Europe. Some European car companies have already started to hire truck drivers themselves, rather than relying on external companies, so that they can drive the car transporters of the same car manufacturers and transport cars around the Old Continent. But as the months and years pass, the number of car transporter drivers seems inevitably destined to increase more and more.
Tags: thousands Chinese electric cars abandoned ports Europe
