Electric vehicles clog busy Belgian port as demand slumps

Up to three million electric vehicles are shuttled from cargo ships onto trucks every year at the western Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

With one in every four vehicles now electric, Zeebrugge’s port operator has had to change the landscape to accommodate the precious cargo.

This includes constructing a dozen wind turbines on the quayside; on-site battery recharging options; quality control and a ruthless hunt for the slightest defect to deliver ready-to-use cars to customers.

“This is the future,” said Anne Degrauw, a vehicle processing centre manager of import-export company ICO Terminals SA.

This coastal thoroughfare represents one of Europe’s largest ports and has undergone a massive transformation to accommodate the green evolution.

But instead of supplying an endless stream of China-made EVs to buyers, rows and rows of automobiles gather dust in the car park, reportedly due to oversupply.

This is compounded by lower-than-normal EV registrations, which sat at 13.5% in July 2024. This is a drop in the ocean compared to gas-powered cars.

François Simonart, an ICO Terminals SA sales manager, said there was an increase in volume for electric cars after the COVID-19 pandemic — but only from China as “they have the technology” and raw materials.