Two buyers order a truck on the same day, from the same yard, to the same port. One pays noticeably more to get it there than the other. Both trucks weigh about the same. Neither buyer was cheated.
The difference is CBM, and it is the number almost nobody in this trade puts on a page.
What CBM actually is
CBM is cubic metres. It is the volume of the box a machine fits inside, and it is worked out the same way you worked out the volume of a box at school:
length × width × height.
Take the Sinotruk HOWO 6×4 dump truck we sell. It measures 8.70 m long, 2.55 m wide and 3.45 m tall. Multiply those three and you get 77 cubic metres. That is the figure on the card, on the page and in the spec table, and it is the figure a freight forwarder will price against.
Note what is not in that calculation. Not the weight. Not the payload. Not the engine. Just the space.
Why volume and not weight
A ship has two limits, and for the cargo we move only one of them ever binds.
It has a weight limit, and a vessel carrying heavy dense cargo can reach it. It also has a space limit, and for vehicles that is what runs out first, every time. A truck is mostly air. A tipper body is a large empty steel box. A cab is a room. You are paying to move a shape, and the steel inside the shape is close to irrelevant to the shipping line.
So the industry prices vehicles on volume. When you ask a forwarder for a rate they will quote you USD per cubic metre to your port, and your freight is that rate multiplied by the CBM of the machine. Two trucks of identical weight and different dimensions cost different amounts to ship, and the difference can be substantial.
The number that surprises people
Here are four dump trucks from our own catalogue, with their payloads and their shipping volumes side by side.
| Machine | Payload | Shipping volume |
|---|---|---|
| HOWO 6×4 tipper | 25 to 30 t | 77 m³ |
| HOWO 8×4 tipper, short body | 35 to 45 t | 75 m³ |
| HOWO 8×4 tipper, standard body | 35 to 45 t | 88 m³ |
| HOWO 8×4 tipper, long body | 35 to 45 t | 102 m³ |
Read the first two rows again. The four-axle truck carries up to fifteen tonnes more than the three-axle one and occupies two cubic metres less on the vessel. Every instinct says the bigger truck must cost more to ship. It does not, because it has a shorter body and the body is most of the box.
Now read the last three rows. Those are the same truck with three body lengths, the same driveline and the same payload rating. Between the shortest and the longest there is 27 cubic metres of difference, which is 36% more freight, for no extra carrying capacity at all.
Ask us for the body length in metres on a specific unit and we will measure it rather than print a figure here. The volumes above are the ones we publish because they are the ones we have checked.
That is the whole point of publishing this figure. A buyer comparing those three on machine price alone is comparing the smallest part of the decision.
How to use it
Three steps, and you can do them before you talk to anyone.
One: get a rate per cubic metre to your port. Any freight forwarder will give you one, and so will we. It moves week to week and it differs by port, so treat it as current rather than fixed.
Two: multiply it by the CBM of the machine. That is your sea freight. It is on every page of this site, so you can do this for any machine we sell without asking us anything.
Three: add it to the machine and compare landed costs, not machine prices.
This is where buyers lose money, and it is not a small amount. A cheaper machine with a bigger box can arrive costing more than a dearer machine with a smaller one, and you find that out at the invoice rather than at the decision.
The part that is not in the arithmetic
Two honest caveats, because a rule of thumb that pretends to be exact is worse than one that admits its edges.
Rates move and they differ by port. Freight is not a stable number. It moves with fuel, with vessel availability and with whatever is happening on the shipping lanes that month. Anyone printing a fixed rate on a website is printing something that was true once. That is why there is no freight table on this site: we get you a current figure for a sailing we can actually book.
How it is shipped changes the sum. A machine in a container, a machine on a flat rack and a machine driven onto a roll-on roll-off vessel are priced differently, and not every machine fits every method. A tractor unit and a 22-tonne excavator are not the same problem. Tell us the machine and the port and we will tell you which method applies before we quote it.
Ordering more than one changes it again. Two machines on one booking is one set of documents and often a better rate per cubic metre than two shipments. If you are buying a tractor unit and a trailer, ask for them priced together. It is usually the cheapest thing you can do in the entire transaction.
Why we publish it and others do not
We looked hard at the sites of the exporters we compete with before building this one. Not one of them publishes shipping volume, and not one of them explains what it does to a landed cost.
We think that is a choice rather than an oversight, and we think it is the wrong one. A buyer who understands their freight before they order is a buyer who does not feel ambushed by the final invoice, and that is worth more to us than the few deals where a hidden 27 cubic metres would have flattered a comparison.
Every machine on this site carries its CBM on the card, in the spec table and in the body copy. Where we calculated it from printed dimensions rather than taking it from the catalogue, the page says calculated next to it, because the two are not the same kind of number.
Ask us with a port and a machine
With a destination port, a machine and a quantity we can give you a landed cost instead of a machine price. That is a more useful thing to compare, and it is the number you actually pay.
Every machine, with its CBM → · Where we ship from, and the route → · 6×4 or 8×4, and which is actually cheaper →