A newly delivered Chinese car carrier loaded 7,738 Teslas at Shanghai and set a national record for electric vehicles shipped in one voyage.
The Malta-flagged vessel, named Glovis Nova, departed from Shanghai's South Port Terminal on Sunday, carrying only Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built at the nearby Gigafactory.
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The cargo is destined for Zeebrugge, Belgium, where the cars will be distributed across Europe.
This shipment broke the Chinese record for the most electric vehicles exported from a domestic port on a single ship.
A Tesla-Only Cargo
Instead of hauling a mix of EVs and plug-in hybrids from several brands, the Glovis Nova carried nothing but Teslas.
Sticking to passenger cars also maximized capacity, since bulkier loads like buses and engineering equipment take up far more deck space.
The Glovis Nova can carry up to 10,800 vehicles at once and runs on a liquefied natural gas dual-fuel power system.
It left port at the same time as the Panama-flagged Glovis Leader, another Chinese-built carrier with the same capacity, which was bound for Busan, South Korea.
Both ships were built at Guangzhou Shipyard International, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation.
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The record haul was made possible by the Glovis Nova's optimized deck layout.
Lined up bumper to bumper, those 7,738 cars would stretch about 36 km (22 miles) and cover roughly 67,600 square meters.
Tesla's factory in Shanghai is perfectly positioned to take advantage of these new ships.
The South Port Terminal, located just 6 miles away, serves as a roll-on, roll-off vehicle export hub, allowing newly built vehicles to leave the factory and arrive on ships in just hours.
China continues to tighten its grip as the world's largest new car exporter.
BYD also operates its own fleet of car carriers, having introduced the first of them, Explorer No. 1, in early 2024.
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It has since added seven other ships, enabling it to send thousands of electrified vehicles to markets worldwide.
