Huawei’s car unit joined CATL’s battery-swap network of 2,520 stations across about 200 Chinese cities

Yinwang, the car unit controlled by Huawei, signed a strategic cooperation framework on Monday, Oct. 19, with battery maker CATL and CATL’s swap subsidiary CAES, bringing Huawei into CATL’s Choco-swap network of 2,520 stations across about 200 Chinese cities. The station count is CATL’s figure as of Sept. 29. The agreement covers swappable battery packs and the station network, and it was signed with CATL chairman Robin Zeng and Jin Yuzhi, a Huawei senior vice president and Yinwang chief executive, in attendance.

Help yourself and the planet: The Cool Down makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet, with smart, simple changes to save more and waste less in your everyday life.

Get The Cool Down →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.

It is a framework, not a product launch. No vehicle models, launch date or service areas were announced.

What the framework covers

Electrek’s report on the signing says vehicles running Huawei’s Qiankun smart-driving systems would be made compatible with Choco stations. Yinwang is owned 80% by Huawei, 10% by Seres, which builds the AITO premium SUV brand, and 10% by Changan’s Avatr, so the deal reaches across the group of automakers that already use Huawei technology. Electrek notes that plenty of other Chinese automakers also buy Qiankun systems. Yinwang’s own statement was reported by Reuters on Oct. 19, a page that was not accessible for this report.

Electrek frames the deal against CATL’s scale: the company supplies roughly 40% of the world’s EV battery cells, and its swap push has moved quickly from a standing start. The July 4 report cited about 700 stations in October 2025 and none at the start of 2025, and said that if the current pace holds CATL would have more than 4,000 stations globally by the end of 2026. Yinwang is also known as Newcool.

CATL’s stated aim is to link the car, the station and the cloud. Under that plan a vehicle would judge when it needs energy from battery status and driver habits, find a station, drive in on its own and line up for the swap.

How the 2,520-station network got built

CATL entered the swap market in 2022, when it confirmed plans ahead of a brand launch event in China. The standardized packs were relaunched at the end of 2024 under the Choco-swap name, and Electrek reports 1,020 stations at the end of 2025. A July 4 Electrek report said the 2,000th station went in on June 30, covering 180 cities in 31 Chinese provinces, with CATL averaging more than 200 deployments in each month of 2026. From 2,000 on June 30 to 2,520 on Sept. 29, the network added 520 stations in three months.

CATL says a swap takes 99 seconds. Its targets are more than 3,000 stations by the end of 2026 and 30,000 over the long term. Electrek’s July report said recent expansion covered urban markets, tourist spots and commercial districts, and that the company was reportedly preparing expressway routes including Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Kunming and Beijing-Tibet.

Who else swaps, and how it compares

Huawei joins existing Choco partners GAC, BAIC and NIO. NIO, which runs its own swap system, reached its 100 millionth swap in February 2026 with 3,790 stations and passed 110 million swaps by June, per Electrek, so its network remains larger by station count. CATL also has a joint venture with Octopus Energy for heavy trucks in the UK and Europe, which Electrek covered in June. Zeng said in that announcement, as Electrek’s July report quoted him, that the technology had been field-proven in China and that CATL was delighted to bring it to the UK and Europe. In December, CATL said it had co-developed 10 new EV models with domestic automakers that use swappable batteries.

The arithmetic of the network’s growth frames what comes next. CATL’s goal of more than 3,000 stations by the end of 2026 means roughly 480 more stations after the Sept. 29 count of 2,520, and a pace of more than 200 a month would cover that in a little over two months. NIO’s 3,790 stations belong to a vertically integrated system, while Choco-swap is built around standardized packs that several automakers can adopt, which is the logic behind adding a partner like Huawei’s car unit. Electrek’s report does not say when a Yinwang-linked vehicle would first use a Choco station, which brands would carry the compatible packs, or which cities would see them first. Until those details arrive, the verifiable content of the deal is the signing on Oct. 19, the three named parties, and the network it plugs into: the 2,520 stations that CATL counted on Sept. 29, spread over about 200 cities.

Swapping has failed before. Tesla demonstrated a 90-second pack swap in 2013, ran a single pilot station at Harris Ranch, California, and later let the program fade, a history Electrek traced in a 2016 report on Tesla’s battery swap program. Better Place raised about $850 million and went bankrupt in 2013. The Huawei framework leaves open the same questions about how many models will actually be built for the stations, and Electrek’s report names none. Electrek’s author calls swapping a complement to charging, not a replacement, and says it now looks like a lasting part of China’s EV mix.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

Help yourself and the planet: Get The Cool Down →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.