Chinese battery manufacturer CATL and automaker Nio are preparing to launch what they call the world’s largest electric vehicle battery swapping network, the companies announced Tuesday. The two firms said they would coordinate their buildout of battery swapping stations, operating networks in parallel but with increasing overlap over time.
CATL and Nio first announced a technical partnership last year that included battery swapping. At Nio Day 2024, the automaker also launched its Firefly EV brand, which will use CATL’s Chico-Swap technical standards. Both companies said they will work toward national standards for battery swapping technology in China, aiming to make it easier for other automakers to join in the future.
CATL invests $345 million in Nio’s charging unit
As part of the expanded partnership, CATL is investing 2.5 billion yuan (roughly $345 million) in Nio Power, the automaker’s charging and battery swapping division. The investment shows a deepening financial tie between the two companies, though neither side provided a timeline for the new network’s completion.
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Nio has long been an outlier among Chinese automakers. While most rivals focused on fast-charging infrastructure, Nio kept pushing battery swapping. It claims to have built 3,172 swapping stations across China, including 1,000 along major highways connecting more than 700 cities. Volvo and Polestar have signed limited agreements to use the technology, and several Chinese automakers have already partnered to test or deploy swapping in some models.
Outside China, nothing on this scale exists. A few automakers — Ford among them — have said they are considering battery swapping, but none have made major investments beyond pilot programs. California-based startup Ample is trying to revive large-scale battery swapping in the United States with a modular system that lets different vehicles adapt to its packs and stations.
For drivers in China, the practical effect could be faster and more convenient recharging in dense urban areas where home charging isn’t always an option. Battery swapping eliminates the wait time of even the fastest chargers, and a shared network across brands would reduce the need for each automaker to build its own. Whether that convinces more Chinese buyers to go electric — or just makes life easier for current owners — depends on how quickly the stations actually get built and how many other manufacturers sign on.
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CATL and Nio said they will push for national technical standards that could allow vehicles from multiple brands to use the same swapping stations. If successful, that would be a major shift from the current separate systems, where each automaker’s swapping hardware is often incompatible with others. The two companies did not specify which other automakers might join or when such standards might be adopted.
The announcement comes as China’s EV market continues to grow, but competition is fierce. Battery swapping has struggled to gain traction globally due to high infrastructure costs and the rapid improvement of fast-charging technology. Nio’s persistence, backed now by CATL’s capital and manufacturing heft, could change that calculus — at least in China.
Ample, the California startup, is pursuing a similar vision but on a much smaller scale. Its system uses a robotic platform to swap battery modules rather than the entire pack, and it has partnered with Uber and several fleet operators in pilot programs. But without a major automaker or battery supplier behind it, Ample faces an uphill climb compared to the CATL-Nio alliance.
