Car transport ships set sail to save money

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- So far, the Auriga Leader has been a lucky ship.

While lots of car carrier ships are languishing at anchor around the world, the pride of the NYK Line has stayed busy hauling shiny new Toyotas from Japan to the West Coast of the U.S.

The auto industry's troubles around the world have spilled over into the oceans. The transportation industry that thrived with growing exports of vehicles around the world has suffered right along with automakers.

NYK, which says it has more car carriers than any other line, knows that well. At least a fifth of its 120 towering carriers are idle, fully manned and ready to go if the car market bounces back.

After the bottom dropped out of car sales, Toyota's monthly shipments of cars from Japan to the West Coast fell as low as just one in February. At the time, unsold cars were backed up on the docks in Long Beach, and the company was looking for more storage space, says Brian Mason, who handles Toyota's shipping logistics.

As the recession has eased a little, Toyota now is sending seven shiploads of cars a month — an improvement, but still a far cry from the 10 or 12 ships a month when the auto business was at full tilt a couple of years ago.

The pickup in business is encouraging to NYK. "If anything, we are pulling more ships back in service," says Taro Matsushige, a U.S.-based senior manager of operations for NYK.

But for now, Matsushige says the line is doing what it can to save money wherever it can. The Auriga Leader and other car carriers, for example, are running at reduced speeds to save fuel. A 12-day trip can take 15 days now.

NYK is finding other way to save money, as well. Ships time their entry into ports so that they arrive in daytime, not at night, when harbor pilots charge higher rates.

The Auriga Leader, which just went to sea in January, has another money-saving feature: 328 deck-top solar panels that produce enough juice from the sun to power the ship's machinery, such as steering gear and the ventilation fans on the cargo decks.