CATL has passed 700 battery-swap stations across 39 Chinese cities, underscoring a rapid push to make quick battery exchanges a mainstream option for EV drivers.
The world’s biggest battery maker said today that its “Chocolate” network now offers 100-second swaps and 10-minute station discovery in core urban areas across 11 cities, with the 700th site opening in Jinan, Shandong, according to CarNewsChina.
Coverage is thickest in the Yangtze River Delta with 179 stations, followed by 123 in the Sichuan – Chongqing region, 121 in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei cluster and 116 in the Greater Bay Area.
CATL aims to reach 1,000 sites by the fourth quarter of 2025 and more than 2,500 in 2026, with a longer-term vision of tens of thousands of locations and eventual expansion into Europe.
The battery giant works on swap technology with Changan, GAC, FAW, Wuling and SAIC. CATL’s Choco-SEB packs are housed in standardised stations with 14–30 compartments.
With each swap taking around 100 seconds, a single site can handle up to 822 swaps a day.
Subscription use is priced at about 0.1 yuan per kilometre (6 sen per kilometre).
Two chemistries are supported — LFP and ternary NMC — with 20# packs offering up to 500km CLTC range for A0-class cars and 25# packs up to 600 km CLTC for A- to B-class BEVs. (The 20# and 25# denote different size battery packs; 25# is bigger pack offering longer range)
