Exactly.
Except that as
@UkNorthampton pointed out
your screenshots indicate Shanghai -> Rotterdam shipping cost of almost $9000 per container.
At 2 cars per 20 ft container - which what google says is typical - that would make cost of shipping 1 car over $4000 not $600. I've never shipped a car I am really confused where estimate of $600 per car comes from.
Apologies for mis-typing.
The reason I pulled the quotes up was to show that $600/car for shipping was a believable number. To do a more detailed comparison one has to take into account that a container is 20' long vs the 15' length of a car; that the quotes I pulled up were for 1x not 700,000x units; the difference in lane width; that the shipping type is container vs specialised car-carrier; and to be real finnicky there may also be a transit speed difference; oh and difference in port handling fees. But overall I can go with $600ea.*
When you've done all that mental adjustment the take-away is that the 700k units for $422m @ $600ea is believable.
That in turn then begs the question of what exactly is being shipped where during what time period. If it is Shanghai exports only and for 1-year only then it is seriously bonkers numbers, implying a tripling of total manufacturing volume in one year in Shanghai. Whilst that would be good news, it seems unlikely. Therefore I've proposed a more complex series of shipping routes (triangular or quare trade) that might bring it more into less bonkers territory, and I've noted that others (notably Caterpillar) do work similar routing patterns as they optimise their global manufacturing and logistics.
Some other peripheral suggestions were put forwards by
@jbcarioca, though to be honest (sorry jbcarioca) I don't think on this occasion he is adding anything that I hadn't already considered and either dismissed myself, or included. (at least going on the public domain info here ...)
(A possibility we should be aware of, if they are running square/triangular/etc routings is that they will also be exploiting these vessels to move storage product around the world, or chargers for that matter. As yet that is probably not material, but it will in time becomes so. There are ways of getting around the ro-ro nature of these car carriers if it is beneficial to do so).
Bottom line is, as @ArtfulDodger has pointed out, these are very significant numbers in this announcement. Exactly what they mean is open to debate, but they are most certainly not "gentle expansion". More like "explosive detonation".
(Poll : who will be the first legacy to go bust. I, once again, propose either BMW or JLR.)
As an aside 1) I do feel that quarterly investor calls ought to have more relevant info offered by the company, and 2) tougher and more pertinent questions from the floor, and 3) there should be no corporate investor briefing days whatsoever - we should all get an absolutely even break. After all if I can be bothered to share my insight and information, then I want it to be on an absolutely level playing field basis.
* Average cost of goods sold per vehicle is currently $35,300 per vehicle. If sea-freight of a vehicle is $600ea then one can calculate some improvement as a result of having a three-continent factory footprint. However that is an apples and pears set of data, so I won't be doing it. More important in my mind are the improvements in import tax+duties burden, and reduced cost of capital due to less goods-in-transit.
