CATL made truck batteries swappable: QIJI stations refill a heavy truck in five minutes

Electric heavy trucks beat diesel on running costs but fail on refueling time — a line-haul schedule cannot absorb a multi-hour charge. In June 2023 CATL released QIJI Energy, a one-stop heavy-truck battery-swap system: standardized lithium-iron-phosphate Swapping Electric Blocks, an automated swapping station that completes a swap in minutes, and a cloud platform to book and route the swaps. Trucks from different brands pull in, leave with charged blocks, and go.

The network then grew along China's highways. By December 2025 QIJI stations worked with over 95% of mainstream heavy-truck models, and CATL opened the country's longest battery-swap corridor at 1,250 km; each truck saves a claimed 30,000 to 60,000 yuan (about $4,300–8,500) a year in operating costs. QIJI ran roughly 300 stations at the end of 2025, targeting 900 in 2026 to form a 'five horizontal, five vertical' backbone across major freight corridors. The market was moving with it: new-energy heavy trucks passed 30% monthly penetration in China for the first time in November 2025.

The model is now being exported. In 2026 CATL bought the largest stake in Qiyuan Green Power, China's biggest heavy-truck swap operator with 1,600-plus stations, valuing it at about $1.5 billion; and with Octopus Energy it formed Swaptopus, planning the first UK swapping hubs in 2027 and more than 30 European sites by 2035, sized to support over 300,000 electric trucks. 'The challenge is keeping them moving,' said Octopus founder Greg Jackson. 'Instead of waiting for hours, trucks can be back on the road in minutes.'

Standardize the battery, sell the swap, not the cell

Uptime is the product in freight: a five-minute swap preserves the schedule an hours-long charge destroys.

Cross-brand compatibility (95% of mainstream models) makes every station a network good — each new truck model improves every station's economics.

Battery-as-a-service removes the largest upfront cost of electric trucking, while CATL monetizes each pack across a 15,000-cycle life instead of one sale.

Sized modules (one to three 171 kWh blocks per swap) let operators buy energy per route instead of carrying the biggest possible battery everywhere.

Closing environments proved the model first — ports, mines and steel mills ran fixed loops where swap stations paid back fastest.

When a constraint is time, standardize the part that is slow to refill and sell it as a service. Networks beat products: the more brands a station serves, the faster it pays back.

CATL agreed in August 2026 to become the largest shareholder of Qiyuan Green Power — the state-backed operator of 1,600-plus charging and swapping stations across 208 cities — in a deal valuing it at about 10.28 billion yuan ($1.5 billion). In Europe, Swaptopus plans its first UK hubs in 2027, with two Deepway swap-ready trucks already road-testing in Hamburg and talks open with DAF, Iveco and Volvo Truck. QIJI Energy's 2030 target is a nationwide network of roughly 180,000 km covering 80% of China's truck line-haul capacity and 16 major city clusters.