Nordic know-how and business verve has a major imprint on the global fleet of vehicle carriers, supporting the logistics and strategies of major automotive groups. Norwegian influence in shaping the pure car/truck carrier (PCTC) segment is newly-expressed in the emergent series of Aurora-class ships commissioned by Hoegh Autoliners.

Construction of a total of 12 Aurora newbuilds of 9,100CEU (car equivalent unit) capacity has to date been entrusted, in three contractual tranches, to China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu) Co (CMHI) at Haimen, and an eventual series of 16 could be in prospect.

The programme is innovative in its specific combination of considerable unit capacity, load flexibility, multi-fuel powering arrangements, and environmental circumspection. Applying characteristic long-term thinking, it builds on the advances achieved with the Horizon series of 8,500CEU PCTCs that also came from China, but from Xiamen Shipbuilding, in 2015/2016.