CATL on track for battery swapping rollout goals

CATL reports it has so far built 400 battery swap stations for passenger EVs in China. It believes it is well on the way to achieving its goal of 1,000 stations by the end of this year.

On the commercial EV side, CATL said that it has constructed around 100 battery swapping stations for heavy-duty trucks, and that it expects to have completed work on 300 of these by the end of 2025. CNEVPost reports that more than 20 battery-swap compatible EVs have been launched by CATL’s automotive customers and that CATL is seeking to collaborate with companies such as Sinopec, Nio and Didi to further grow the battery swap ecosystem. Changan Automobile reportedly delivered the first 1,000 EVs compatible with CATL’s technology in May.

Yesterday, CATL also released its latest financial report, sharing a net income of 16.6bn yuan (€2 billion) in Q2 of 2025 – a 34 per cent growth over last year. This comes amid reports that CATL is considering expansion of its battery-swapping business to Europe, with CATL exec Jiang Li saying that battery swapping has ‘huge potential’ to make batteries cheaper and more durable in Europe. Competitor Nio already operates 60 battery swap stations across Europe, and a total of 2,609 across China as a whole.

Unlike plug-in charging, battery-swapping involves the use of non-permanently installed battery packs. Instead of buying batteries outright, customers lease the batteries from companies and exchange them for fully charged ones quickly at dedicated stations. In December of last year, CATL debuted two standardised battery packs as part of its Choco-SEB system. They come in two fixed sizes: the 20# pack is made for small EVs with a wheelbase of between 2.2 and 2.3 metres, while the 25# pack is designed for vehicles up to 2.9 metres in wheelbase.

cnevpost.com