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Ford says 5000 Australia-bound BYDs on a car carrier bought by the Chinese giant is little different to its two rented ships flat-out delivering Rangers and Everests to our shores.
Ford has labelled headlines relating to a BYD-owned ship delivering the Chinese car giant's vehicles to Australia as a “part PR” and “part sensationalisation”, dismissing it as little different to its arrangements to transport Rangers and Everests to local showrooms.
It is despite BYD owning the 5000 vehicle-capacity vessel delivering cars to Australia – one of eight in its global fleet, on which it spent more than AUD$1 billion acquiring – whereas Ford has only leased two ships from another firm for three years.
Ford Australia marketing director Ambrose Henderson told Australian media the story of BYD using its own ship to fast-track vehicles to local customers has been overestimated.
"Three, four years ago, we leased two boats of our own, and so we could also do a picture of our 5000 coming in every month at every port. All those two boats do is go between Thailand and Australia delivering Rangers and Everests," he said.
"I think part of this [BYD story] is some PR, part of this is some sensationalisation, if I can put it that way.
"We already took those actions to secure the logistics for the volume of cars we are selling years ago.
"There is – in my mind – no new news about a boat of 5000 cars coming in. We do that every month, we do more than 5000 cars coming out of Thailand."
The Ford agreement has seen the company lease two car-carrying ships to transport Rangers and Everest from the Thailand factory to Australia, with at least one of the vessels – the Grand Quest, pictured – capable of holding 2600 vehicles.
BYD and Denza recently revealed details of the BYD Zhengzhou car carrier ship – one of eight owned by the Chinese car brand – making its way to Australia with close to 5000 on board for our market.
According to BYD, this is part of the Chinese car brand’s plan to meet a surge in demand, and bring 30,000 vehicles to Australia in May and June.
In 2022, BYD spent a reported 5 billion Chinese yuan (AUD$1.03 billion at current exchange rates) to purchase its fleet of eight roll-on, roll-off car carriers, equivalent to about AUD$128.5 million per vessel.
Almost 90 per cent of Ford’s sales volume in Australia comes through the Ranger ute and Everest SUV.
As car makers are forced to meet increasingly-stringent emissions rules – which penalise firms for selling too many high-emission cars – Ford's future will be threatened by its dependence on diesel-powered vehicles with relatively high CO2 outputs.
Examples of the Ranger and Everest with 2.0-litre four-cylinder or 3.0-litre V6 are soon to accrue fines under the CO2 gram-per-kilometre limits, which grow more stringent each year.
While the penalties are billed to car companies, many have already indicated that they will be forced to pass some portion of them onto customers as price rises on new vehicles in showrooms in order to remain profitable businesses.
While the Ford Ranger does offer a plug-in hybrid powertrain, and the Super Duty sits in a weight class exempt from the CO2 rules, Drive understands the vast majority of sales are for standard diesel variants.
"This has been the most competitive market in the world for a long time. And it was the most competitive before the Chinese carmakers entered the market, and had the impact that they have had," Henderson said.
"We (Ford) haven’t been around for 101 years in Australia without having to go through changes in the market: two world wars, the Global Financial Crisis, COVID, the Depression, we’ve seen a fair bit in our history.
"And I think what you have seen from Ford, in every one of those changes in the industry, has seen us refocus on what customers want, pivot and address that, and deliver and win.
"There’s a new wave of competitors coming. Of course, we are assessing what they are doing."
Sam has been banging on about things with wheels as a job for about fifteen years now, making a start in four-wheel-drive magazines after a botched attempt at tertiary education. A love of four-wheel drives has never left the picture, and he even managed to bag an award for off-road journalism at the 2024 Newspress Awards. Sam's remit now includes anything and everything since joining CarAdvice back in 2018.
