Huawei's car unit joins CATL's Choco battery-swap network

Battery swapping in China just gained another heavyweight. On 19 October, Huawei's intelligent car company Yinwang, also known as Newcool, signed a strategic cooperation framework with CATL and its battery-swap subsidiary CAES, CnEVPost reports, citing a CATL statement. Electrek also covered the deal.

What the deal covers

The partnership focuses on vehicles that use Huawei's Qiankun smart-driving and car-tech solutions. The plan is to make them compatible with CATL's Choco-swap network and to work together on swappable batteries and the stations themselves.

The more interesting part is software. The three companies want to link data from the car, the station and the cloud. Using live battery status and a driver's usual trips, the system would predict when the car needs energy and book a swap in advance. In the scenario CATL describes, the car decides it needs energy, finds a station, drives in, lines itself up and completes a fully automated 99-second swap before driving off.

Nio already offers something similar at some of its own stations, where cars can enter and swap while using navigation-assisted driving.

The network behind it

According to CATL, it had built 2,520 Choco swap stations in about 200 Chinese cities as of 29 September. Its long-term goal is 30,000 stations, and earlier plans call for 1,000 highway stations in 2026 and 2027.

What is still missing: the announcement names no car models, no launch date and no coverage areas. Huawei holds 80% of Yinwang, while Seres and Changan's Avatr hold 10% each, so brands built with Huawei are the obvious candidates, but none has been confirmed.

China is already the world's biggest EV market, as September's record EV share showed. For drivers elsewhere, home and public charging remain the norm: our guides to choosing a home EV charger and looking after an EV battery still apply.