78.5 seconds.

This is the time it takes for the Choco-Swap station on site to replace the battery pack of the car chassis as a whole during the 2024 CATL Choco-Swap Ecosystem Conference.

This means that battery swapping, as a way to replenish energy for new energy vehicles, has considerable advantages in terms of energy replenishment efficiency.

In his speech at the conference, Zeng Yuqun, chairman and CEO of CATL, said that battery swapping is no longer just a technology or a solution, it has become an important way to promote the sustainable development of the entire society.

Zeng Yuqun believes that by 2030, the energy replenishment route for electric vehicles will be divided into three parts: battery swapping, home charging, and public charging piles.

The construction of battery swap stations is accelerating

In January 2022, CATL's wholly-owned subsidiary, Times Electric Service, held its first online press conference to launch the battery swap service brand EVOGO. In the related brand advertisement, Zeng Yuqun's picture of sticking his head out of the car window and handing out a piece of chocolate is a classic.

This is not an endorsement of chocolate, but CATL's intention to promote its "Choco-Swap block" solution for the battery swap business.

However, in the two years after the first press conference, there were few public reports on CATL's related business layout, and its commercial and passenger car battery swap business has been tepid.

In fact, with the rapid development of battery technology and fast charging technology, there are certain unknowns as to whether the battery swap mode for electric vehicle energy replenishment can still run smoothly.

Recently, CATL has started to make intensive moves in the field of battery swapping. It has signed cooperation agreements with SAIC-GM-Wuling, Changan Automobile, CITIC Financial Leasing, and Uxin Used Cars. This year, BAIC Group and GAC Aion have also joined CATL's "Battery Swap Alliance", and its battery swap station coverage area has expanded to cities such as Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Hefei.

An important statement about CATL's battery swapping business was made at this year's World Power Battery Conference.

CATL Chief Technology Officer Gao Huan revealed that in terms of battery swap station planning, CATL's goal is to reach 10,000 stations. The goal of battery swap station construction in 2025 is to cover more than 30 cities and have more than 500 stations; by 2026, it is planned to expand the battery swap station network to more than 70 cities, with more than 1,500 stations; the goal for 2027 is 3,000 stations; and the long-term goal is to reach 10,000 stations overall.

However, at this press conference, CATL updated and raised the overall construction plan of the battery swap business.

Yang Jun, CEO of Times Electric Service, said that in November this year, Choco-Swap has officially announced the new generation of battery swap stations and the first mass-produced model. Next year, Choco-Swap will build 1,000 battery swap stations and will also enter the Hong Kong and Macau markets.

"10,000 stations are only a mid-term goal, and 30,000 to 40,000 battery swap stations will eventually be built." Yang Jun said.

It is worth mentioning that this time the third generation of CATL Choco-Swap station was launched. The reporter learned at the scene that the first generation of Choco-Swap stations are mainly for passenger car owners, and the second generation of battery swap stations are for commercial vehicle owners. The third generation of battery swap stations can be compatible with both commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles, but it is not compatible with the battery blocks launched in the previous two generations.

Expanding the Ecological Alliance

How does CATL achieve the ambitious goal of 30,000 battery swap stations?

Yang Jun introduced that as a new infrastructure, battery swap stations need to be built by themselves to iterate various capabilities, and also need to be built together to expand network effects. The more resource parties join, the faster this process can be accelerated, allowing users to experience convenience faster. Therefore, Choco-Swap opens the standard for battery swap stations, and welcomes everyone to work together.

"From zero to one, the first 1,000 stations were built by Times Electric Service; from the 1,000th to the 10,000th station, Times Electric Service and ecological partners built together; from 10,000 to 30,000 stations, the whole society will build together." Yang Jun said.

Yang Jun emphasized that three things must be done well to realize the dream of battery swapping - standardization, new infrastructure, and full ecology.

This is because whether the business model of the battery swap business can run smoothly needs to overcome the inconsistent technical standards, high investment costs and long payback period, and market acceptance. In addition, CATL itself needs to face the role transformation from manufacturer to service operator.

"We will continue to promote the standardization of battery swaps, and the core is the standardization of battery size." Zeng Yuqun announced that CATL launched two standardized Choco-Swap blocks, named 20# and 25# battery swap blocks, in comparison with 92# and 95# gasoline at gas stations.

This is a change from the previous model of freely combining the number of battery blocks to match the corresponding needs.

In addition to promoting battery standardization, CATL also set the leasing price of battery swap blocks for the first time.

It announced that the leasing price of the "lithium iron phosphate battery version" battery swap battery is 599 yuan per month for 25# battery swap package with unlimited mileage, and 499 yuan per month for family package; 469 yuan per month for 20# battery swap package, and 369 yuan per month for family package.

In addition, consumers can evaluate the value of batteries on third-party testing platforms, directly sell the car body without batteries on second-hand car platforms, and enjoy the long-term and short-term rental services of battery-swap models on car rental platforms.

This also means that CATL's "Choco-Swap 3.0 Era" also takes into account the entry and exit mechanisms of transaction scenarios. CATL said that on the day of the conference, it signed a total of 107,500 battery orders with 30 companies.

To achieve the commercial model of the battery swap business, more industry collaboration is needed.

At present, CATL has officially announced cooperation with Changan, GAC, BAIC, Wuling, FAW and other automakers to jointly launch 10 battery-swap models, which will be launched one after another from the end of this year. "New models will be launched in the market every quarter." Yang Jun said.

At the same time, insurance companies provide professional battery insurance for car owners, reducing battery premiums from 2,000 yuan to 500 yuan.

Most importantly, CATL needs to ensure the frequency of battery swapping at the battery swapping station to achieve a break-even point.

According to the on-site staff, the life of the battery swapping station is calculated as 10 years, and the power swapping station can have a certain economic and cost recovery ability if it swaps 200 to 250 times a day. The data released by CATL on site showed that its latest generation of Choco-Swap stations can provide up to 822 battery swapping services a day.

In addition, CATL also announced that the battery swapping battery will do its best to use green electricity when charging. In fact, its long-term planned 30,000 to 40,000 battery swapping stations will become a considerable scale of energy storage capacity and support the B2G (battery to grid) model.

Such a storage, charging and swapping unit is expected to be connected to the power grid, park photovoltaics, etc. through the dispatching cloud platform, participate in the interaction of the power grid, intelligent peak-shifting charging to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and respond to the peak and frequency regulation of the power grid in seconds, contributing to the security of the power grid and the expansion of green electricity consumption.

According to the company's calculations, 30,000 battery swap stations, each with 14-30 batteries, can handle a total of 33.6 million kWh of electricity; in addition, the 20 million vehicles that can be served by 30,000 battery swap stations can handle 1.12 billion kWh of electricity, which is a considerable amount of energy storage.