CATL is taking the battery swapping business to the fast track.

After deploying 2,000 battery swapping stations in cities, CATL is accelerating its efforts to connect cities.

On September 8th, Wall Street News learned from Times Electric Service that the Chocolate Battery Swapping Station at the Laohekou Service Area in Hubei Province has recently been officially put into operation. A representative from Times Electric Service revealed that Chocolate Battery Swapping is currently pushing forward with centralized signing agreements for hundreds of stations across multiple provinces. It is expected that the number of signed high-speed station agreements will exceed 1,000 by the end of this year, and 1,000 high-speed battery swapping stations will be built by 2027, forming an "11 vertical and 9 horizontal" high-speed battery swapping backbone network.

The aforementioned source indicated that Times Electric Service is cooperating with provincial transportation groups and expressway platforms, with projects to be launched first in Chongqing, Fujian, Shanxi, Anhui, Henan, Guangxi, and Gansu. The projects under construction are taking place along major expressways such as the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, Nanjing-Luoyang Expressway, Daqing-Guangzhou Expressway, and Shanghai-Kunming Expressway.

This high-speed network construction is based on a larger urban network than before. As of the end of June 2026, Chocolate Battery Swapping has built a total of 2,000 stations, covering 31 provinces and 180 cities; information released by the company in July showed that it has cooperated with 11 car manufacturers, 18 passenger car brands, and 25 models.

The vehicles are being delivered to users one after another. On August 8th, 100 Jifox Beta S3 battery-swapping models were delivered in Xiamen. Jifox currently offers a battery rental discount plan for this vehicle to family users, with a monthly rental of 399 yuan and a monthly mileage limit of 5,000 kilometers. An unlimited mileage plan is also available for a monthly rental of 599 yuan. Consumers can now compare the convenience of battery swapping with the monthly cost when choosing a vehicle.

The needs of household users and frequently used commercial vehicles differ. Daily commutes may only require a few stations near their homes, but trips back home or road trips several times a year will influence their choice of a battery-swapping vehicle. For battery-swapping vehicles that can be charged, the more abundant the battery-swapping stations along the route, the easier it is for consumers to use this service on long-distance trips, making battery rental plans more attractive.

Therefore, some of the revenue from highway stations comes from outside the station itself: convenient charging along the route may make it easier to sell battery-swapping vehicles in cities, increasing orders for city stations. A highway station with low daily usage may also serve to connect the entire travel route.

This also explains why Times Electric Service is collaborating with provincial transportation platforms on a large scale. High-speed battery swapping requires continuous deployment; finding sites and calculating returns separately for each location easily leads to gaps in service. Coordinating service area resources at the provincial level helps in planning the construction of the entire route, but it also requires partners to share the relatively long investment recovery period for some sites.

The collaborative projects this year have provided more specific details regarding the allocation of funds and resources.

On August 24, Times Electric Service and Kunming Development New Energy signed a cooperation agreement to jointly build 100 Chocolate-themed battery swapping stations. The project stipulates that Kunming Development New Energy will bear the asset investment and leverage its advantages in site selection, vehicle replacement, and local coordination; Times Electric Service will provide a standardized battery swapping system, operation plan, and digital system, with both parties agreeing on unified battery configuration, pricing, and service standards.

This agreement brings together the most crucial resources for establishing a website: funding, location, and potential future vehicle availability. The vehicle resources provided by the local platform are particularly important, as they allow the development plan to better align with local needs, reducing the pressure of searching for customers after the website is built.

In Kunming, Times Electric Service participates in local capital-invested battery swapping networks by exporting its standards and operating systems. Site assets can be held by partners, while battery configuration, pricing, and services are implemented according to unified rules. As the number of sites increases, the work of cross-site battery dispatching, equipment maintenance, and service organization will also allow Times Electric Service to establish continuous business relationships with its partners.

What automakers get is a charging network they can access.

Building an independent battery swapping system requires a single automaker to bear the investment using its entire vehicle fleet. With multiple brands sharing the system, stations along the route can serve vehicles from different brands, reducing the associated costs automakers incur when promoting battery swapping models. For automakers that haven't yet built their own networks, this makes battery swapping a more accessible product option to try.

Correspondingly, automakers also need to maintain collaboration with CATL in battery adaptation, product development, and after-sales service. CATL's cooperation with automakers extends from battery procurement to the vehicle usage stage. The more complete the high-speed network, the easier it is for automakers to use long-distance battery swapping as a selling point, and the two parties will continue to cooperate after the sale of new cars.

Once the network is deployed, the speed at which vehicles are introduced will directly impact the returns for all parties. Partner vehicle models need to go through development, market launch, and sales before they become regular customers of the stations; the usage frequency of household users also differs from that of high-frequency operational vehicles. Highway stations also need to configure service capacity to handle concentrated traffic flow during holidays, while on weekdays, they need to use more orders to spread out equipment, battery, and maintenance costs.

Most highway stations plan to be equipped with Shenxing supercharging piles, which can expand the customer base. The charging service can accommodate passing vehicles that have not yet adopted battery swapping solutions, and some equipment can be shared with the battery swapping system. CATL previously disclosed that the integrated supercharging and battery swapping station can share the transformer substation and charging modules, and in emergencies, it can use the station's batteries to power the charging piles.

For service area operators, the same site can accommodate both charging and battery swapping vehicles simultaneously, improving the utilization rate of the site and power facilities. Revenue from charging services can also support site operations as the number of battery swapping vehicles gradually increases.

Moving from cities to highways, CATL is organizing batteries, vehicles, and service stations into a sustainable business. Local partners provide capital and land, automakers launch compatible models, and CATL Electric Service is responsible for connecting the scattered service stations into a unified service network. Automakers sell their vehicles, while CATL Electric Service manages the battery and charging services after delivery.

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