Footprint: A Growth Ceiling
Footprint and storage capacity have become a growth ceiling in FVL.
In Finished Vehicle Logistics, transport performance (sea/road/rail) is not enough: well-located storage capacity (ports, hubs, metropolises) conditions the absorption of volumes, deadlines, kilometers, and ultimately the quality of supply service expected by OEMs.
The geography of logistics nodes evolves little, but flow corridors can rebalance (North vs. Mediterranean) depending on maritime routes, production origins, and industrial arbitrations. Being able to quickly add capacity 'in the right place' thus becomes a strategic issue.
In tense areas, land is rare and expensive: flat parks quickly saturate and expansion becomes difficult. Verticalization provides a concrete answer: densify the existing footprint and secure capacity without depending on exceptional land availability.
CA vs Footprint Analysis
Estimate of the share of revenue by segment of the European FVL market for New Vehicles (NV)
| Category | CA base 100 | Detail | CA base 100 | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| International Approach | 40% | |||
| Sea approaches | 10% | Short and deep sea, favored if associated with port reception offer | ||
| Rail approaches | 6% | Regularly received at a center, owned by the rail flow manager | ||
| Road approaches | 24% | Mostly carried out by fleets from Eastern countries or the Iberian Peninsula | ||
| Center | 20% | |||
| Handling | 4% | Carried out in factories, ports, or land centers | ||
| Storage | 8% | Requiring long-term capacity commitments (own or leasing) | ||
| Services | 8% | Carried out in workshops or on-site | ||
| National Approach and Distribution | 40% | |||
| National rail approaches | 4% | Often received at a center, owned by the rail flow manager | ||
| National road approaches and distribution | 36% | Very often carried out by the center holder | ||
| TOTAL | 100% | 100% |
| Activity requiring a park | 60% | Beyond the 'Center' (20%) |
| Activity favored by a park | 16% | Part of the approach and distribution is structurally linked to parks |
| Activity weakly impacted by park ownership | 24% |
Quick reading of the table above:
- In FVL NV, a significant part of the value chain is linked to the existence of a park (storage, services, handling, supported distribution).
- In a representative scenario, €1 billion in revenue can imply a need for around ≈ 450k spaces, depending on the mix of activities and operational assumptions.
- In 'flat' storage, this represents several hundred hectares (≈ 720 ha at 16 m²/vehicle).
- With Hi Park, verticalization makes it possible to reduce the land footprint from an order of magnitude of ~720 ha to ~160 ha (average densification hypothesis x4.5).
These figures and ratios are presented as orders of magnitude.
Why the Park is the Economic Pivot of FVL
The park is not a support: it is a commercial asset.
In Europe, a significant part of the FVL value chain relies on the existence of parks (ports, centers, associated services). Parks represent only a visible fraction of the activity, but structure a much larger part of operations: flow balances, network positioning, and competitiveness.
Implication: capacity and location of parks directly influence an operator's ability to capture and maintain revenue, as land constraints and OEM requirements increase.
What Hi Park changes:
- It makes it possible to increase capacity where geographical and economic logic will eventually require it, without depending on immediate land availability.
- It makes densification truly deployable in tense areas (ports, metropolises, hubs), where flat expansion is blocked.
When land is lacking in the right place, verticalization becomes a lever for resilience and logistical sovereignty.