CATL plans to launch more than 30 battery-swapping stations for electric lorries in Europe by 2035 as the world’s largest battery maker bets on a technology that will make them cheaper to run than diesel trucks.
The Chinese group will partner with Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest household energy supplier, to build a network of battery-swapping hubs that the two companies said could serve more than 300,000 electric trucks and generate private investment of more than £30bn in the region.
Using battery swapping, electric lorries will be able to replace depleted cells with fully charged ones in minutes, whereas fast charging takes just under an hour. The technology also lowers the upfront cost of buying an electric truck, as batteries do not need to be owned, while cells can also be used for longer.