A passenger-car owner may tolerate a charging stop. A commercial truck operator measures that stop in lost utilization, driver time and late freight.
Heavy trucks also need enormous batteries and extremely powerful charging connections, which turns electrification into an infrastructure problem as much as a vehicle problem. CATL's answer is to take the depleted battery out and put a charged one in, in about 5 minutes.
What CATL announced
CATL launched its TECTRANS II heavy-truck batteries in Beijing on October 20, a month after showing them at the IAA Transportation show in Hanover, Germany. In China they come in 5 versions. The largest, mounted under the truck, holds up to 760 kWh, which CATL says is good for more than 600 km (373 miles), with an 800-volt system that can add 300 km (186 miles) in 20 minutes and a rated life of 1.5 million km (932,000 miles). A rear-mounted ultra-light version of 450 or 600 kWh is 534 kg (1,177 lb) lighter than before, and an ultra-thin one is 580 mm (22.8 in) deep instead of 860 mm (33.9 in), which frees about 3 cubic meters (106 cubic feet) for cargo. Then there's what CATL calls a "dual-electric" range extender: a swappable main pack of 432 or 513 kWh paired with a fixed 77 kWh backup battery that takes over in 100 milliseconds. It's a range extender with no engine at all.
The swapping happens at Qiji, CATL's network of heavy-truck stations. A depleted pack comes out and a charged one goes in, in about 5 minutes. CATL had completed about 305 Qiji stations by the start of 2026, and it now targets 900 by the end of 2026, 2,000 by 2027 and 10,000 eventually. The standardized swap blocks have 52% fewer components and cost 15% less than before, Reuters reported, and CATL says new stations need no excavated pit and can be set up in as little as 5 days. Fleets can lease the battery separately from the truck, and CATL now bills for the net energy charged rather than the energy discharged, so fleets keep the benefit of regenerative braking; basic plans are up to 20% cheaper per kWh. At the launch it signed up 14 partners, including the logistics companies SF Express, ZTO and YTO. "For heavy trucks, battery swapping is the only solution for pursuing ultimate energy-replenishment efficiency," said Gao Huan, CATL's chief technology officer for its vehicle businesses in China.
Sources: CATL, via Reuters and CnEVPost, October 20, 2026; CnEVPost on September heavy-truck sales.
Swapping moves the charging, it doesn't remove it
Swapping doesn't eliminate charging time. It moves that time away from the truck. Packs can be charged more slowly while they're off the vehicle, which can reduce peak demand on the grid and stress on the battery. Operators get a truck back into service quickly, while the station manages charging around grid conditions and the next expected wave of trucks. Battery leasing can also separate the cost of the pack from the price of the truck and transfer some of the risk of degradation to the network operator.
The catch is structural
The disadvantages are just as structural. Competing manufacturers have to accept common pack dimensions, electrical connections and software protocols. Stations have to stock expensive batteries before they're busy enough to justify them. Someone has to own that inventory, monitor its health and decide how a driver is compensated if the pack they receive has less capacity than the one they gave up. A swap system can create convenience for the truck while concentrating capital and complexity at the station.
China is where this gets tested first. New-energy heavy trucks were 50% of the country's heavy-truck sales in September, up from 29% a year earlier, and about 29% of the new-energy heavy trucks sold in 2025, 67,622 of them, were built to swap batteries. By January, more than 10 truck makers, including FAW Jiefang and Shaanxi Heavy Duty, offered more than 30 models with CATL's standardized swap packs. And standardization may spread beyond freight: on October 19, Huawei's car unit agreed to make vehicles using its driving systems compatible with Choco-swap, CATL's separate swap network for passenger cars, which already has 2,520 stations.
CATL's bet is that fleets will give up control of the battery in exchange for uptime.
4 ways to keep a heavy truck moving
The comparison shouldn't be battery swapping versus diesel alone. Megawatt charging keeps the pack with the truck but demands very high power. Hydrogen offers fast refueling but carries production, distribution and efficiency penalties. A range-extender, or onboard generator, uses a smaller battery and existing liquid-fuel infrastructure, but it keeps combustion, emissions and maintenance.
| Stop to "refuel" | Who owns the energy store | The hard part | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battery swap | About 5 minutes at a CATL Qiji station | Often the station network or a leasing company | Rival truck makers have to share a pack, and every station has to stock expensive spare batteries |
| Megawatt charging | Tens of minutes: CATL's long-range pack adds 300 km (186 miles) in 20 minutes | The truck's owner | Grid connections big enough for several trucks at once. The MCS standard allows up to 3.75 MW; Tesla's first full-scale public Megacharger, opened in California in July, runs at up to 1.2 MW a stall |
| Hydrogen fuel cell | Minutes, like diesel | The truck's owner | Making and delivering the hydrogen. Nikola filed for bankruptcy in February 2025, and Daimler has pushed series production of its fuel-cell truck to the early 2030s |
| Onboard generator | A quick fill of diesel or gasoline | The truck's owner | It keeps an engine, its emissions and its maintenance. Scania and DHL tested one pairing a 416 kWh battery with a 120 kW generator |
Sources: CATL, via Reuters and CnEVPost, October 20, 2026; IEC and CharIN on the Megawatt Charging System; electrive on Tesla's Megacharger, July 23, 2026; electrive on Nikola, February 19, 2025; Transport Topics on Daimler, June 15, 2026; DHL, February 20, 2025.
Whether CATL's bargain works will depend less on the drama of a 5-minute swap than on how busy the stations are, how standardized the packs become and the total cost per mile. China has the density of freight routes, the policy support and the battery supply chain to find out first.
CATL launched heavy-truck batteries of up to 760 kWh on October 20 and plans 900 battery-swap stations in China by the end of 2026, where a truck's depleted battery can be exchanged in about 5 minutes. Swapping doesn't remove charging time; it moves it to the station. It works only if rival truck makers share a pack and the stations stay busy enough to pay for their batteries. In China, where half the heavy trucks sold in September were new-energy, it's about to be tested at scale.
Sources
Reuters (Ju-min Park), "CATL bets on battery swapping to speed electrification of heavy trucks," October 20, 2026. CnEVPost, "CATL unveils dual-battery system to accelerate heavy-duty truck electrification," October 20, 2026, and on TECTRANS II at IAA Transportation, September 15, 2026. ifeng Auto, on the 5 TECTRANS II versions, October 20, 2026. ChargedEVs, on CATL's swap stations at the end of 2025, January 15, 2026. CnEVPost and Electrek, on Huawei and Choco-swap, October 19, 2026. Chyxx, on swap-capable heavy trucks in 2025, July 16, 2026. electrive, on Tesla's first public Megacharger, July 23, 2026, and on Nikola, February 19, 2025. Transport Topics, on Daimler's fuel-cell truck, June 15, 2026. DHL, on its range-extender test with Scania, February 20, 2025.