New alliances offer hope to battery swap sector

As China's electric vehicle energy supply competition pivots toward ecosystem dominance, a string of major battery-swapping alliances has formed to address the sector's long-running hurdles of fragmented standards and hefty up-front infrastructure investment.

BAIC and CATL signed an agreement on Thursday to deepen battery-swapping cooperation and build a unified battery swap ecosystem. According to the agreement, BAIC will roll out adapted models across its multiple brands to connect to CATL's EVOGO solutions.

Earlier last week, Huawei-affiliated Yinwang Intelligent Technology signed a cooperation agreement with CATL and CATL's battery-swapping subsidiary CAES to codevelop a smart battery swap ecosystem.

The alliance will link vehicle, station and cloud data, enabling EVs fitted with Huawei's Qiankun intelligent driving system to autonomously locate swap stations, drive into position, align and complete a 99-second battery swap before departing.

Local media reports state the three partners plan to launch five swappable EVs by 2027. The first model will be by Epicland, a joint brand developed by Dongfeng and Huawei. Aistaland, a Huawei-GAC marque, also has swappable vehicles in its pipeline.

As of Sept 30, CATL had built 2,520 EVOGO swap stations covering 200 cities across China's 31 provincial-level regions, more than doubling its network from December 2025. The battery provider targets 3,000 stations by year-end.

Even so, vehicle development has lagged station expansion. CATL has released over 20 EVOGO-compatible models from partners including FAW, Changan, BAIC, Chery and GAC. Most carry price tags below 150,000 yuan ($22,470) and target commercial fleets, with low uptake among private buyers.

The new partnerships are expected to speed up the rollout of battery-swappable EVs for private users.

Tong Zongqi, general manager of the Open Service Platform at the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, said battery manufacturers' push into swapping primarily aims to boost battery shipments and deepen ties with automakers.

Combined with battery graduated sequential utilization and recycling, the business model closes the industrial value chain. For battery makers, swapping acts not merely as a sales channel but as a critical source of life-cycle battery operation data, Tong added.

Nio, China's pioneer of consumer battery swapping, operated 4,186 swap stations and provided more than 120 million such services by mid-October. Its fifth-generation stations serve its Nio, Onvo and Firefly-branded cars.

Since 2023, Nio has inked battery swap cooperation agreements with Changan, Geely, JAC, Chery, FAW and GAC. Yet these partners have not launched compatible vehicles to date; non-Nio vehicles on its network remain mostly fleet-focused.

In late September, Nio and Geely signed a strategic deal covering charging and swapping, solidifying cross-shareholdings in their energy businesses.

Geely Holding Chairman Li Shufu said last week at an industry conference that the tie-up avoids redundant infrastructure build-out. "There is no need for Geely and Nio to build separate systems, so we joined forces," Li said.

The battery swap industry still faces fundamental headwinds: steep up-front capital expenditure, long payback cycles, cross-brand battery incompatibility and low adoption by private motorists.

Batteries make up roughly 40 percent of an EV's total cost. Capacity degradation and poor residual values remain major deterrents for buyers. Battery as a Service, or BaaS, decouples battery costs from vehicle pricing and pools battery packs for shared use, easing consumer concerns over long-term battery performance decay.

Ji Xuehong, director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center at North China University of Technology, noted that business models like BaaS transfer battery ownership from consumers to operators, cutting up-front purchase costs.

CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun forecast China's future EV energy replenishment market will evolve into three parallel tracks: private home chargers, public fast chargers and battery swap stations.