Daily business at the BLG car terminal in Bremerhaven involves vehicle ships loading and unloading large volumes of vehicles – it was over two million cars last year alone.

Over the last few days, the ASIAN LEGEND, from the EUKOR shipping company, has demonstrated this on board with 4,677 I 10 and I 20 Hyundai vehicles in Bremerhaven. What was so unusual about this was the fact that most of the cars had already been sold during the journey from Asia to Europe. 3,600 vehicles therefore had to be immediately cleaned, checked and prepared for sale at the car terminal’s technical centre before being distributed to Hyundai dealers across Germany, one half by rail and the other half by lorry.

The high demand for small and fuel-efficient vehicles, which has been ongoing since the end of January, is the result of the 2,500 Euro scrapping bonus for older vehicles if a new car is purchased to replace them. In Bremerhaven, the demand currently ensures high employment, particularly in the technical centre, and good utilisation of lorry capacities in the area of transportation to dealers.

Sales at sea are a very common logistical option in continuous modern-day supply chains from manufacturers to the car dealers in the designated countries, but never before have they been seen on such a large scale.