Belgium tops China’s NEV world export ranking in 2024

In the first eight months of this year, China exported 4.09 million vehicles worldwide, with Russia (705,514 units) as its biggest export market. Belgium ranks fifth with 182,504 cars.

However, when the Chinese Customs data are broken down to figures for NEVs only (New Energy Vehicles, as China calls electrified cars), Belgium tops the world ranking with 170,876 units.

Russia is China’s largest overseas auto market

According to Chinese media, Russia is now China’s largest overseas auto market, accounting for more than 19% of China’s auto exports in August this year, with a record value of 1.6 billion USD. But these are primarily cars with a classic combustion engine.

The other top-nine countries for China’s car export are Mexico (323,540), UAE (203,048), Brazil (192,254), Belgium (182,504), Saudi Arabia (161,261), the UK (137,925), Australia (118,888), the Philippines (104,402), and Turkey (95,650).

Regarding NEVs exported from January through August 2024, Belgium is at the top of the world for China’s car exports. It leads by far to the other nine: Brazil (136,112), the United Kingdom (88,933), Thailand (81,546), the Philippines (69,987), Mexico (61,647), India (53,738), Australia (51,843), the United Arab Emirates (47,716), and Germany (41,105).

Major car hub for Europe

That shouldn’t be such a big surprise, as the Port of Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast – and to a lesser extent, its sister port inland in Antwerp – is the world’s most important port for car transshipment.

And those are not all Chinese, as Tesla uses Zeebrugge as a central European hub for its Chinese-built Model Y or European carmakers, like BMW or Volvo, which also have production in China.

Logistic problems

From Zeebrugge, the whole of Europe is served, which causes enormous logistic problems in storing these cars temporarily and transporting them inland. In 2023, 2,400 ro-ro ferries unloaded three million vehicles in Zeebrugge alone, where ICO, a daughter of Japanese Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), manages the world’s biggest car terminal.

Transport giant NYK is the global market leader in the port handling and storage of roll-on/roll-off cargo, running the world’s largest car terminals. ICO runs the car terminals in Zeebrugge and the Antwerp port in Belgium. Both harbors merged in 2022 into a single entity called Port of Antwerp-Bruges.

The aging Pierre Vandamme lock in Zeebrugge is a significant bottleneck for the larger car ferries, which gives access to the inland port. With its tidal water height differences, the outport is less suited for unloading cars from a ro-ro ferry.

BYD sailing by

Plans to expand the second, smaller Visart lock, which is Zeebrugge’s oldest, to 427 meters long and 55 meters wide to accommodate larger ships and create more access roads to the outport have been on the table for years but have been postponed repeatedly.

The costs are estimated at almost three billion euros. In addition, expansion plans with a new 10,000-car storage garage are trailing, waiting for permits. That’s one of the reasons Zeebrugge saw BYD’s Explorer 1 sail by the beginning of this year to head for Rotterdam, as the Belgian harbor couldn’t cope.

BYD, constantly challenging Tesla as the world’s biggest electric carmaker, has just launched its second car carrier from the warf, the Hefei, ready to begin its career at sea. This one, also built by Guangzhou Shipyard, is 199.9 meters long and has a beam of 38 meters. With this size and a draft of nine meters, the Hefei might fit the new lock Zeebrugge is waiting for…