In the advancing digitisation of freight management, COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers reports its first digital bill of lading for Chinese cars to Mexico. It also provides a spectacular image of container racks.
Due to the ongoing scarcity of ro-ro ships for Chinese new car exports, COSCO Shipping is using metal racks to stack cars in the holds of container ships. At the same time, the Chinese shipping giant is making efforts to speed up the handling of cars and make it more efficient by extensively digitising its management system. For example, two brand-new ro-ro ships – the first of a series of twenty-four – are packed with electronics and digital systems.
The COSCO Shipping Specialised Carriers division now reports another digital milestone in car transport, this time not in roro but in container ships. “We awarded for the first time a digital bill of lading for cars we transported in container racks from China to Mexico. In recent years, the development of the ‘E-Bill of Lading’ has been the main focus of our innovation for transportation of
transportation.
To 5 million cars
The trip from Taicang (near Shanghai) to Puerto Lazaro Cardenas (east coast of Mexico) was done with the ‘COSCO Shipping Ace’ (21,237 teu). The cargo involved cars from Changan Automobile of Chongqing, one of the four largest Chinese carmakers with more than 40 years of experience. In its communications, Changan often posts pictures of ships from partner COSCO Shipping.
The group has its own brands Changan, Nevo, Deepal, Avatr and Kaicheng and, in partnerships, produces the brands Changan Ford, Changan Mazda and JMC. These are made in 12 factories in China and 22 worldwide. Changan sold 2.01 million cars of its own brands last year and aims to grow to 2.8 million cars this year, 480,000 of which are in 70 countries other than China. It targets 5 million units by 2030, including 1.2 million overseas. The group has research and innovation centres in places including Detroit (US), Birmingham (UK), Yokohama (Japan), Munich (Germany) and Turin (Italy).
