CATL buys $370M stake to become China's top heavy-truck battery-swap operator
What's the deal? CATL has signed a contract to acquire a 24.8726% stake in Qiyuan Green Power for 2.56 billion yuan ($370 million), making the battery giant the largest shareholder in China's biggest heavy-duty truck battery-swapping network.
The deal values Qiyuan Green Power at roughly 10.275 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) — a premium of about 120% over its book value. Qiyuan is currently owned by China PowerDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a subsidiary of state-owned State Power Investment CorporationDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? The acquisition lets CATL combine two battery-swapping technologies under one roof. Qiyuan's rear-mounted swapping fits over 80% of existing swap-ready heavy trucks and dominates closed sites like mines, ports, and steel mills.
CATL's own Qiji brand uses a chassis-based system built for new, standardised trucks on the national highway logistics network. Together, the two paths cover both legacy fleets and new long-haul routes.
Why now? The two networks are at very different stages. By the end of 2025, Qiyuan ran over 1,600 charging and swapping stations across 208 prefecture-level cities, with cumulative operational mileage above 4.4 billion km.
CATL's Qiji brand had around 300 stations at the same point, targeting 900 by 2026 to form a "five horizontal and five vertical" backbone across China's main highway corridors. Buying scale accelerates that build-out.
The bigger footprint: Battery swapping is now a core CATL push across vehicle classes. Its Choco-SEB passenger stations were operating nationwide in the first half of 2026, aiming for 3,000 stations by year-end, while light-truck swapping runs in the Pearl River Delta.
The signal: China's largest battery maker is moving downstream, buying its way into infrastructure once controlled by a central state-owned enterprise. Consolidating the country's top heavy-truck swap network signals a bet that swapping — not just charging — will underpin the commercial vehicle energy transition.
Image credit: Shanghai Qiyuan Core Power Technology
