The first electric vehicles with CATL's swappable battery are already on the streets

The Chinese manufacturer Changan Automobile has just delivered a first batch of one thousand units of the Oshan 520 electric saloon to a taxi company in the Chinese city of Chongqing. During the handover ceremony, Changan representatives highlighted that Chongqing is the first city to deploy battery swapping stations compatible with CATL’s Choco-SEB system.

The city currently has 34 of these battery swapping stations, each capable of storing up to 30 batteries, and this number is expected to rise to 50 before the end of the year. According to the company, the battery swapping process is surprisingly fast, taking less than 100 seconds and therefore outperforming the system of NIO, which takes three minutes to complete the swap in its most recent models available in China.

The Oshan 520 is the electric version of the Changan Eado combustion-engined saloon. This mid-size vehicle, measuring 4.77 metres long, 1.84 metres wide and 1.47 metres high, is equipped with an electric motor delivering up to 105 kW. Its range, under the Chinese CLTC homologation cycle, reaches 515 kilometres. Demand for this vehicle to join company fleets has been significant, with more than 15 thousand orders registered for this model.

Battery swapping continues to gain strength in the Chinese market

As we already told you here on HighMotor, last December CATL presented two standardised battery formats for its Choco-SEB system, where SEB stands for Swapping Electric Blocks and Choco refers to its design resembling a chocolate bar. This system, initially introduced in 2022 under the name Evogo by CATL’s subsidiary CAES, allows the number of battery blocks to be adapted according to the size of the vehicle or the needs of use. The battery packs presented include the 20# model, for small cars with a wheelbase of 2.20 to 2.30 metres, and the 25#, for vehicles with up to 2.90 metres, such as the Oshan 520, which uses the latter. The 25# pack offers 70 kWh with NMC cells or 56 kWh with LFP cells, the latter being the ones used in Chongqing.

The Oshan 520 will not, however, be the only electric vehicle to benefit from CATL’s battery swapping stations. This same year ten other electric models compatible with CATL’s Choco-SEB system will be launched, including the GAC Aion S, the Hongqi E-QM5, the SAIC Maxus Mifa 9 and the small Wuling Bingo, which will probably use the 20# pack.

CATL has ambitious plans to expand its infrastructure, aiming to open thousand battery swapping stations for passenger vehicles in China by the end of 2025, in addition to 300 extra stations for electric trucks that will use the 75# block. These stations will be operated both by CATL and by partner companies, consolidating the Choco-SEB system as an innovative solution for electric mobility in the country.