Aulton New Energy aims to become the "first battery swapping stock." How is the story of battery swapping told now?

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The first stock of the battery swapping industry is finally coming.

According to Hong Kong Stock Exchange disclosure on July 19, 2026, Aulton New Energy Co., Ltd. has officially submitted its prospectus, aiming to become the “first battery swapping stock” in Hong Kong. Against a backdrop of policies encouraging separation of vehicle and battery ownership and electrification of public sector vehicles, China’s battery swapping industry is undergoing profound structural adjustments.

However, with the rapid spread of 800V high-voltage supercharging technology, the hefty capital expenditure required for station construction and backup power, and the disparate standards of various brands, the battery swapping model has been pushed to a crossroads where it must reprove its commercial value.

Aulton’s IPO this time is not merely a capital operation of one company, but a test of whether the independent third-party battery swapping business model can truly succeed.

To verify the establishment of this business model, the first challenge is to overcome the profitability deadlock brought by heavy assets.

The construction cost of a battery swapping station is extremely high, with single station investment often exceeding 3 million yuan, and companies must long-term bear substantial fixed costs such as land leasing, electricity purchase, and equipment depreciation. When the regional quantity of battery swapping vehicles isn’t scaled, insufficient utilization of each station will directly drag down overall gross margins, causing financial hemorrhaging for the enterprise.

Historical data in Aulton's prospectus intuitively reflects this pain. From 2023 to 2025, due to heavy assets invested in self-owned swapping stations, the company recorded net losses of 655 million, 419 million, and 307 million yuan respectively. In 2025, the gross margin for swapping services at self-owned stations was as low as -21.4%, meaning every 1 yuan of service provided faced a loss of 0.21 yuan.

However, Aulton's recent financial performance also simultaneously verifies the effectiveness of third-party battery swapping companies breaking out towards “asset-light” operations.

To improve its financial structure, Aulton decisively slowed the pace of new self-owned station deployments, reducing the number of self-owned stations from 321 at the end of 2023 to 214 by April 2026, and shifted its business focus to battery swapping equipment sales and platform-based operations services for third parties.

This strategic adjustment had immediate results in 2026, with the company achieving revenue of 235 million yuan in the first four months, turning gross profit positive at 4.123 million yuan, gross margin rising back to 1.8%, and operating cash flow recording a net inflow.

This trajectory of turning losses to profits proves to the capital market that third-party service providers lacking vehicle profit backflow must substitute blind heavy asset expansion with technological output and refined operations; currently, it is the only visible path to profitability.

After proving the potential for optimizing its financial model, the third-party battery swapping model also needs to answer a second core question: Where is its living space in a market crowded with giants?

Currently, the battery swapping ecosystem has formed three camps: OEMs like NIO, battery giants like CATL, and independent third-party providers like Aulton. Compared to the first two who seek to build brand moats or control fundamental standards, the core competitiveness of third-party service providers lies in absolute neutrality and cross-brand compatibility.

This neutrality allows third-party companies to hit precisely into the high-frequency B-end commercial vehicle market.

Prospectus data shows that commercial passenger vehicles swap batteries an average of 14.0 times per week, while private cars only 1.5 times. By collaborating with multiple OEMs to develop compatible modules, Aulton brings various brands of taxis and ride-hailing vehicles onto the same swapping network, effectively enabling single-station profitability with high vehicle turnover rates.

Meanwhile, in trunk logistics, mining areas and other fixed-route, high-load scenarios, commercial heavy trucks have extremely high demands for energy replenishment efficiency and grid stability, further strengthening the high-growth battleground for third-party battery swapping. Giving up on the fantasy of fully replacing private cars and deeply anchoring high-frequency, high-value commercial operation scenarios has been proven as the fundamental logic for third-party swapping stations to stand.

Looking at a longer industrial cycle, independent swapping models must face the strong squeeze from 800V high-voltage supercharging, and demonstrate their irreplaceable long-term moat.

Advances in supercharging have indeed somewhat diluted private car owners’ dependence on swapping speed, but this has forced the swapping model to clarify its scenario boundaries. A battery industry engineer told Wallstreetcn that the core advantage of swapping is structurally shifting from mere energy replenishment speed to grid friendliness and centralized asset management.

High-power supercharging piles used intensively during peak hours impose massive load on local grids, while swapping stations naturally possess the “distributed energy storage” property with dozens of large-capacity batteries. Through vehicle-station-grid interaction, swapping stations can charge at low cost during off-peak night hours and feed back to the grid during daytime peak demand, participating in power market peak-valley regulation.

This capability opens up a highly promising energy service revenue path for third-party swapping platforms, in addition to service fees. Moreover, the constant-temperature slow charging and centralized professional maintenance at swapping stations can effectively extend the cycle life of batteries in high-frequency commercial vehicles, and seamlessly connect the stepwise utilization of retired batteries, achieving true closed-loop battery lifecycle management.

Coupled with the steady advancement since 2026 of technical standards for interoperability in domestic pure electric passenger car battery swapping systems, the industry dividends brought by unified standards will tilt toward third-party service providers with mature cross-brand operational experience.

Overall, Aulton's asset-light transition, deep binding to high-frequency B-end operating scenarios, and future value display in distributed energy storage and battery asset management together form a tightly logical self-verification chain.

Whether this path ultimately wins capital market recognition will become an important reference point in the game between “OEM self-build” and “third-party sharing” routes in China’s battery swapping industry.

Risk warning and disclaimerThe market has risks, investment must be cautious. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the individual user's special investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions in this article are suited to their specific circumstances. Investments based on this are at your own risk. ```