China’s ambitions to seize a significant portion of the European electric vehicle (EV) market has resulted in thousands of unsold Chinese EVs inundating European ports. Some of these vehicles have remained unsold for over a year, with the backup delaying many other shipments of goods throughout the continent.

The overflow of Chinese EVs has led to congestion at European ports, with vehicles piling up, exacerbating logistical bottlenecks and complicating efforts to sell them. In many cases, Chinese automakers are sending these vehicles over without a plan in place to sell them, instead using the parking lots of ports throughout Europe as storage until they are purchased.

To address this issue, some European ports are now requiring importers to provide proof of their plans for moving the vehicles elsewhere once unloaded. However, the cars are still coming from China at what has been described as a “frantic pace.” Instead of the usual shipments that see between 1,000 to 2,000 EVs delivered, cargo boats are now dropping off up to 7,000 cars at once.

This surge in shipments is part of China’s strategy to capture a quarter of the EV sales in Europe by the year’s end, a move that European automakers have warned is a real possibility.