‘It is much, much faster’: could China’s battery-swapping e-trucks be the answer to EV range anxiety?

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Battery maker CATL aims to have 2,000 swapping stations in China by the end of 2027 and to bring the tech to EuropeEvery day, Wang Bing drives his big electric lorry to send about…

Battery maker CATL aims to have 2,000 swapping stations in China by the end of 2027 and to bring the tech to Europe

Every day, Wang Bing drives his big electric lorry to send about five tonnes of goods between the cities of Haikou and Dongfang on Hainan, a tropical island in southern China. A round trip covers about 500 kilometres (310 miles). But refuelling is not something Wang worries about.

“When my battery runs low, I just drive my truck into a battery-swapping station to get a fully charged one,” says the 53-year-old, who shares the journey with a colleague in eight-hour shifts.

Wang has been a lorry driver for nearly three decades. In the first two of those, he drove conventional lorries fuelled by diesel. About five years ago, he began driving an electric model after the logistics company he worked for upgraded its fleet. In July this year, his old e-truck, which used conventional plug-in charging, was replaced by one with a swappable battery.

In the past, Wang had to spend an hour and half charging his battery each time, but with his new truck, it takes just five minutes or so to have a drained battery removed and a fresh one replaced. “I am very happy,” he says.

Battery swapping is not new in China, where more than 400,000 e-trucks (or over 90% of the global total) were sold last year. The Chinese carmaker Nio commercialised the technology nearly a decade ago for smaller electric vehicles (EVs). But in 2023, the Chinese battery behemoth CATL launched a battery-swapping system for electric lorries through a subsidiary brand called Qiji Energy.

To Wang, the biggest advantage of the technology is the time it saves. “It is much, much faster,” he says. “I don’t even need to leave my truck when the battery is being swapped.”

This swiftness builds on the cost advantage e-trucks already have over their fossil-fuelled peers when it comes to refuelling.

“Electricity is cheaper than oil,” Wang says. The per-kilometre fuelling cost for an e-truck works out about 1.1 yuan…

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