SUVs get parked in the sea
The length of almost two football fields, the cargo ship Jupiter Spirit arrived in Los Angeles’ harbour after an almost three-week journey from Japan, ready to unload its cargo of about 2,000 Nissan Armada SUVs, Rogue crossovers and Infinity sedans in a quick, half-day operation, according to Bloomberg.
But when the ship, operated by Nissan Motor Co.’s freight arm, got about a mile offshore, its captain was ordered to drop anchor. And there the ship remained for almost a week – a floating symbol of an unprecedented logjam as nearby storage lots covering hundreds of acres overflowed with vehicles that Americans suddenly have little desire to purchase.
“Dealers aren’t really accepting cars, and fleet sales are down because rental-car and fleet operators aren’t taking delivery either,” says John Felitto, a senior vice president for the U.S. unit of Norwegian shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen. “This is different from anything we’ve seen before. Everyone is full to the brim.” The Jupiter Spirit’s shipment of vehicles was finally unloaded.
“It is very abnormal for a container ship, a car carrier or a cruise ship not to go right to the berth, discharge and be on their way,” said Kipling Louttit, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a non-profit that monitors commercial ship traffic, according to Bloomberg.
At the Long Beach terminal south of L.A., cars are discharged at one of two piers – one with a 22-acre lot and another with 168 acres – that are capable of storing several thousand vehicles. They typically spend little time there before being relocated to larger storage lots five to eight miles away, where costs are lower, said Glenn Farren, director of tenant service and operations at the port. Then they’re gradually sent via truck or rail to dealers.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
But last month’s sales collapse produced a chain-reaction backlog, causing some ships to divert to other ports, others to wait days to discharge cargo and, ultimately, others to cancel voyages before they even got underway. The Port of Hueneme, a major import facility in Ventura County, California, had to find space in the surrounding area for about 6,000 surplus cars, in addition to the 4,000 on its site. Auto-logistics firms secured lots at a nearby cold-storage facility and an adjacent U.S. Navy base after scouring sites at local colleges emptied by the coronavirus.
Read the full article on Bloomberg.
