NIO joins forces with CATL for world largest battery swapping network

Chinese EV maker NIO, known for its pioneering role in battery swapping, is joining forces with CATL, its major supplier, to set up a worldwide car-swapping network. CATL, the world’s biggest battery maker, puts its money where its mouth is by investing 2.5 billion yuan (€316 million) in Nio Power.

Both parties signed an agreement at the CATL headquarters in Ningdeon on Monday, which should mark the start of building the world’s largest and most advanced battery swap service network for passenger cars.

Choco-batteries for small EVs

NIO is adopting CATL’s new battery swap standard, Choco-SEB, for newly developed models of its affordable Firefly brand. Today, Firefly is incompatible with NIO’s swapping standards for its premium-brand EVs, which currently have 3,172 battery swap stations available.

Both networks should coexist in parallel while both partners work to promote the development and adoption of national standards for battery swap technology in China. “We will continue to promote the standardization of battery swapping, and the most important thing is the standardization of battery size,” Robin Zheng, founder and CEO of CATL, declared earlier.

CATL started swapping in 2022

The new partnership builds on an earlier agreement signed in March 2024, in which the two companies vowed to co-develop battery technology.

CATL entered the battery swapping business in 2022 with its battery swap brand EVOGO and introduced its Choco-SEB (Swapping Electric Blocks) battery packs on December 18th, 2024, during its Battery Swap Ecosystem Conference in Xiamen. These 20# and 25# ‘choco batteries’ are designed for smaller EVs, supporting LFP and NMC chemistries with up to 600 km range.

Next year, it plans to build 1,200 swapping stations by mid-2025, with an additional 2,300 covered by year-end. The ultimate goal is to build 30,000 swap stations in China. Each station will have a stock of 14 to 30 large batteries that can be swapped in under two minutes (100 seconds CATL claims) and will be offered as a subscription service at 0.1 yuan/km (0,01 euro per km).

One NIO swap station in Belgium

Since the brand’s launch, NIO has developed its own battery-swapping standard. Currently, there are 3,172 battery-swap stations in place, 59 in Europe where its cars are sold, and one in Belgium.

That one is situated at the Kattenberg 1 in Edegem, parallel to the E19 highway. That might sound bizarre, as the brand hasn’t officially been sold in Belgium yet, and no launch date has been communicated. But it is aimed at the Dutch passing through Belgium on holiday going south.

CATL helped Nio develop its swappable batteries and has its own battery swapping service, along with a service for battery renting, commonly named under the flag of ‘Battery-as-a-Service’ (BaaS).

That’s under the umbrella of Mirattery, a joint venture between CATL and NIO they launched in August 2020. It allows for cheaper EVs, as the battery remains the company’s property and is rented for a monthly fee, something NIO is proposing, too.

Meanwhile, NIO has signed several other partnerships with Chinese EV makers, such as Changan Automobile, Geely Holding, Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group (JAC), Chery, and Lotus, to develop a swapping standard.