CATL Officially Enters 'Battery Replacement' Era

On January 18, 2022, CATL's subsidiary, Shidai Dianfu (Chinese: 时代电服), released a battery replacement brand named EVOGO. The brand's battery replacement service consists of a battery replacement, a battery replacement station and a developing app. The brand will be built for all automakers and support all passenger cars and logistics vehicles from A00 to C. The first cooperative model of the product is the FAW Pentium NAT (battery replacement combined version), and at least two products will be released within this year. The new brand team will take the lead in selecting ten cities as the first layout areas. The converter block adopts CTP technology and has small and high-energy characteristics. The weight energy density of each battery replacement block reached 160Wh/kg, while the volume energy density reached 325 Wh/L, with an endurance mileage of over 200km. A single battery replacement station covers an area of about three parking spaces and can accommodate 48 battery replacement blocks. The battery replacement can be completed within 1 minute as fast as possible and supports different climatic environments.

The layout of CATL in the field of Battery Replacement began in 2020. In August 2020, the company joined with NIO and Guotai Junan Securities to invest in and establish Wuhan Weineng Battery Assets to promote the implementation and development of the new separated-vehicle-battery business model and launched BaaS (battery as a service) on this basis. At the annual performance presentation meeting in May 2021, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, said that the company believes that power replacement and fast charging are better than hydrogen energy in economy and maturity and is negotiating relevant cooperation with automakers. In July of the same year, CATL first established a subsidiary of Shidai Dianfu in Xiamen as the primary carrier of the battery replacement business.

The leading players in the battery replacement market are Aulton New Energy and NIO. According to the data of the charging alliance in 2021, NIO has built 789 replacement power stations, accounting for 60.8%, while 402 replacement power stations are built by Aulton New Energy, accounting for 31.0%, and Hangzhou Botan Technology Engineering built 107 replacement power stations, accounting for 8.2%.