At 4 a.m., the Horgos Highway Port in Xinjiang is still brightly lit. Pan Guangde, 52, sat in the driver's seat of a brand new ideal L9, gently scanned the code, and raised the brake lever-a few seconds later, he was driving a domestically produced new energy vehicle out of the country for Kazakhstan.

Behind this seemingly ordinary scene is the daily life of an emerging profession: the car "ferry person".

The so-called "ferrymen" are not the mythical soul extradition, but a group of ordinary people who drive China's new cars abroad in reality. Among them are farmers, herdsmen, small shopkeepers, and workers like Pan Guangde who come here from other places to make a living. They took over the new car delivered by the company, completed the exit procedures, and drove all the way to the designated parking lot in Kazakhstan. After delivering the car, they took the bus back, and the cycle started again.

"Going abroad now is really like going abroad." Pan Guangde said with a smile. In the past, vehicles were transported by cage trucks, which was costly and inefficient; now, the "self-driving export" model reduces customs clearance time from more than 30 hours to less than 5 hours. You only need to declare in advance and generate a QR code, and the checkpoint can be swept through with one swipe, and there is "zero waiting" throughout the process.

He set out in the early morning, arrived at the Kazakh parking lot late at night, inspected the car, handed over, and then stayed at a small B & B in Zarkent Town for one night. Early the next morning, I lined up with other "ferrymen" to buy tickets and get on the bus back home. After one trip, the net profit was 300 to 400 yuan. Although it was not generous, it was solid.

What is even more touching is the significance of this job. Pan Guangde remembers that when he handed the car to a customer in Kazakhstan for the first time, the other party touched the car logo and said,"Is this made in China? It's so beautiful!" At that moment, his heart felt warm-he was not only driving a car, but also a business card of "Made in China."

Today, Horgos has nearly 4000 "ferrymen", many of whom are women. Gao Yun, a female driver in her forties, has made hundreds of trips between the two countries in three years. She said: "Every time I pass through the country, my heart warms." The dense verification stamps on her passport not only record the itinerary, but also the footprints of an ordinary person participating in the opening up of the country.

In Kazakhstan's transfer parking lot, China new energy vehicles are ready to sail for Almaty, Tashkent, and even further afield Europe. On the Guomen side,"ferry people" like Pan Guangde are using the steering wheel to measure the temperature of the "Belt and Road".

They are not heroes, but they write extraordinary things in the ordinary; they do not understand grand narratives, but use time and time again to steadily "ferry" China cars, China technology, and China's confidence to the world.

Going abroad is like going abroad-this understatement is backed by the openness of the country and the advancement of technology. It is also ordinary people who are holding the steering wheel in the tide of the times and heading to their own distance.

Source: New energy at the forefront of the sea

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