About one month's worth of regular shipments on board an Australia-bound vessel owned by the Chinese car giant will help BYD rocket up the sales charts after a surge in orders.
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BYD is one step closer to overtaking the likes of Mazda and Ford on the sales charts in Australia after a shipping vessel owned by the Chinese car giant – loaded with close to 5000 vehicles – set sail for local ports for the first time this week.
It is intended to fill a surge in orders for hybrid and electric cars amid high fuel prices, which last month saw BYD report a record 7702 cars, more than any other brand bar market leader Toyota.
The docking of the BYD Zhengzhou in Melbourne next month – before heading to Sydney and Brisbane – forms part of 30,000 cars from BYD and its luxury brand Denza due to reach Australia in May and June, about triple its usual shipments.
BYD has already reported more than 25,000 cars as sold in Australia so far this year – up 111 per cent compared to 2025 – before many of the 30,000 arrivals, including the 4810 aboard the company's vessel, are handed over to customers.
It places the Chinese car giant in line to hand over as many as 90,000 vehicles, in the territory of Ford and Mazda – the country's second- and third-best-selling car brands last year, respectively – which reported 94,399 and 91,923 sales in 2025.
Using a vessel it owns to fast-track vehicles for Australian customers is an unprecedented step from a major car maker, with the single ship equivalent to about one month of regular scheduled arrivals.
The BYD Zhengzhou is one of eight purpose-built, roll-on, roll-off car carriers owned by the brand, which it deploys for various markets around the world when additional transport capacity is needed.
More than 2000 of the 4810 vehicles on board from Shanghai's port are the Atto 2 small and Sealion 7 mid-size electric SUVs, alongside models from the Denza brand, including the B5 off-roader and D9 people mover.
Also on board are Shark 6 utes, Sealion 8 plug-in hybrid seven-seaters, Atto 1 hatchbacks, and what may be among the first shipments of Seal 6 plug-in hybrid wagons for Australia, footage supplied by BYD shows.
BYD says the cargo will be "evenly dispersed between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane", prioritised for essential workers with an outstanding order.
The vessel is due to unload its first cargo in Melbourne on Tuesday, 2 June – after arriving on 31 May, according to ShipFinder – before moving up the east coast.
"BYD’s vertically integrated system allows it to scale production as required, with a fleet of BYD-owned vessels ready to take cars wherever they need to go almost anywhere in the world," BYD Australia chief operating officer Stephen Collins said in a media statement.
"BYD is truly unique in this way and Australian customers are benefitting directly as demand increases for innovative new energy vehicles that are affordable and cost-effective to run."
No other major car maker in recent memory has used a car-carrying vessel it has purchased to ship vehicles to Australia.
In 2023, two ships were set aside for exclusively transporting new Ford Ranger utes and Everest 4WDs from Thailand to Australia, but the vessels were only chartered by Ford Australia from a transport company, rather than purchased.
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Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner
