Hello, I am currently a cadet at SUNY Maritime and have a sizable paper to write in regards to the exporting of U.S cars beyond the borders of Canada and mexico. I was hoping to find some information here to really help fill out the paper. If anyone has any knowledge on the predominant routing, and carriers used and are willing to share it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Kennebec captain? Where are you
A lot of them go out by way of Baltimore, I know that much.
See a lot more come, rather than go from Port Hueneme CA. Wilhelmsen and NYK ships. Pretty sure they make stops in San Diego and LA/LB too.
Pardon my ignorance but do we export any significant amount of automotives? (Other than abrahms tanks and bradley fighting vehicles to the middle east)
Yes but they are all luxury cars and usually stolen
[QUOTE=c_haun;155915]Hello, I am currently a cadet at SUNY Maritime and have a sizable paper to write in regards to the exporting of U.S cars beyond the borders of Canada and mexico. I was hoping to find some information here to really help fill out the paper. If anyone has any knowledge on the predominant routing, and carriers used and are willing to share it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.[/QUOTE]
I don’t know much about the routeing. Import and export points of autos, light and heavy industrial equipment are gathered in a few spots. Houston, Jaxville, and Baltimore are definitely big on USEC/GOM for exporting autos.
As far as what we are exporting, I don’t think it’s all that much. When you take away all the previously mentioned Abrams Tanks, APCs, MRAPs, military connex, trailered eqpmt, and the like that has dominated so much of the outbound US Flag car carrier space, it seems like all you have left is used cars. I recall Crown Vics and Tahoes/Suburbans, and the like being the biggest component of the exported commercial Ro/Ro cargo, along with various few pieces of used Caterpillar, etc. farming and construction machines. Those comparatively cheap, big, V8 autos are a hot seller, even used, because nobody makes them except the USA. A fair bit of the used cars and industrial/farming equipment were complete POSs and were bought for nothing more than parts. Those units were often towed or pushed off.
There is a growing appetite for Cadillacs and decked out GMCs in the Arabian Peninsula, but a few rich Arabs does not make a sea change in those overall export trends.
I have also made many trips to Japan and back where we had absolutely no westbound cargo after discharging 4500 Toyotas between Portland and Long Beach.
I don’t know what goes on abd FOC car carriers hitting the USA (of which there are exponentially more than USA flag) as far exporting American autos. Prior to the last few years, I just don’t see it being much different. We make very few diesel passenger cars, nobody has a hard-on for huge trucks like Americans, and our avg MPG for passenger cars (until late) is not palletable to other countries because they pay so much more for fuel.
other east coast ports have a bustling export business of used cars, some shitboxes, some actually nice cars. Tons of used heavy equipment too. smaller ships bring this shit to the carribean and central america, bigger ships, i’m assuming africa.
Just a few days back I did assist work on a Car Carrier into Port Newark, after unloading new vehicles we shifted them to another berth. They loaded used cars, trucks and heavy equipment.
If they are loading used cars and equipment odds are its heading to the Middle East
I’ve seen car carriers leave beaumont with decks full of Ford sedans and Chevy SUVs. Didn’t load them there but they had just visited several other US east coast ports and beaumont was their last stop before heading over to the Middle East to discharge.
I’ve also seen car carriers unload German cars and backload used heavy equipment in Baltimore.
I have sailed car carriers out of the East Coast from 3/M to C/M, and have been on quite a few different runs. We do run a lot of US exports. Our major load ports are Jacksonville, Baltimore, and Wilmington. Those ports are the majority of our load on the coast. Any US flag car carrier on the East Coast is most likely be involved with the MSP program. In my experience, those load ports we will load mostly GM cargo. We will load 1,000 sometimes more of Corvettes, Escalde, Tahoe, Impalas, Malibu, Buick bound for places like Kuwait, Saudi, or Oman. A lot of used cars sold online go over there as well.