Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), the world’s largest battery manufacturer, has installed more than 700 battery swap stations across 39 cities in China. Each station is equipped to replace a depleted Choco-SEB battery with a fully charged unit in approximately 100 seconds. CATL aims to expand this network to 1,000 stations by the end of 2025 and ultimately build up to 30,000 sites worldwide, with plans to introduce the swap-station model in Europe.
In China’s domestic market, CATL holds over 40 percent of EV battery shipments. The company first entered the battery swapping arena in 2022 under the Evogo brand, but that initial rollout did not meet expectations. In December 2024, CATL relaunched its offering with a second-generation Choco-SEB battery and redeployed resources toward an enhanced swap-station network.
The 700th station opened in Jinan, Shandong province. Eleven cities have designated “battery swap free zones,” where drivers can locate a station within ten minutes in urban cores and complete the battery exchange in just over a minute. Key regions with dense coverage include the Yangtze River Delta—where 179 stations serve cities such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and Hefei—alongside 123 stations in the Sichuan-Chongqing area, 121 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, and 116 throughout the Greater Bay Area.
Looking ahead, CATL plans to deploy at least 2,500 additional swap stations across China in 2026 and move toward a global footprint. The company is collaborating on battery swap technology with automakers including Changan, GAC, FAW, Wuling and SAIC.
CATL’s modular Choco-SEB packs are housed in standardized stations that hold between 14 and 30 batteries. A single station can handle up to 822 swaps per day. Subscribers to the Choco-SEB plan pay roughly 0.1 yuan per kilometer (about 0.014 USD). The system supports two chemistries—lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and ternary nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC)—in two formats: a 20-series pack offering up to 500 kilometers of range under the CLTC cycle for A0-class vehicles, and a 25-series pack rated for up to 600 kilometers for A-to-B-class models.
Source: CarNewsChina
