CATL Chocolate Battery Swap disclosed its network plan: by the end of 2026, the number of battery swap stations nationwide is expected to exceed 3,000, covering nearly 216 cities, with stations findable within 10 minutes in more core urban areas; by 2027, highway battery swap stations will reach 1,000, forming an “11 Vertical and 9 Horizontal” backbone network, with a long-term target of 30,000 stations. A single station can provide up to 600 services per day, and most will be equipped with Shenxing supercharging piles and upgraded into integrated swap-supercharging stations, maintaining 99-second battery swap efficiency. Under the same land and power capacity, the service capacity per parking space is three times that of a standalone charging station, and the stations can also serve as distributed energy storage to participate in grid peak shaving, frequency regulation, and green power consumption.

I. 3,000 Stations and “Find a Station in 10 Minutes”: Scale Targets on the Urban Side

CATL Chocolate Battery Swap recently disclosed its network plan. According to the disclosed figures, by the end of 2026, the number of battery swap stations nationwide is expected to exceed 3,000, covering nearly 216 cities, and more core urban areas will allow users to find a station within 10 minutes; the longer-term target is to deploy 30,000 stations.

These figures involve two dimensions: first, urban coverage density, with “find a station in 10 minutes” as the accessibility indicator; second, scale expectations in total volume. The long-term target of 30,000 stations means the battery swap network is positioned as energy replenishment infrastructure running in parallel with the public charging network, rather than being limited to pilot forms in selected cities.

1,000 Highway Stations and the “11 Vertical and 9 Horizontal” Backbone Network in 2027

Highway scenarios are the focus of this plan. Chocolate Battery Swap proposes that by 2027, highway battery swap stations are expected to reach 1,000, forming a national highway battery swap backbone network of “11 vertical and 9 horizontal” routes.

In terms of rollout pace, in 2026 the first batch has already been implemented in seven provinces, and stations in multiple provinces will be put into operation successively; projects under construction are being rolled out along several national trunk highways, covering the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Sichuan-Chongqing, and other regions. In layout approach, the network relies on cooperation with provincial transportation groups and highway platforms, incorporates battery swap facilities into provincial and national transportation infrastructure planning, and promotes highway battery swapping from scattered single points to networked clusters through hundred-station-level batch signing and large-scale deployment.

The key to this path is not the number of individual stations but route continuity. A single station addresses the energy replenishment needs of one service area, while a networked cluster determines whether long-distance cross-provincial travel can form stable energy replenishment expectations. Taking provincial transportation groups as the main cooperation partners also means siting, land use, and power supply applications are more likely to be incorporated into existing transportation infrastructure processes, rather than negotiated station by station.

99-Second Battery Swap and Integrated Swap-Supercharging Stations: The Efficiency Ledger per Unit of Land and Power

Against the reality of tight land and power resources in service areas and high requirements for replenishment efficiency, Chocolate Battery Swap disclosed two metrics: a single station's maximum daily service capacity reaches 600 swaps; most stations will be equipped with Shenxing supercharging piles and upgraded into integrated swap-supercharging stations, enabling both battery swapping and charging as well as coordinated swap-supercharging.

While maintaining 99-second battery swap efficiency, under the same land and power capacity, the service capacity per parking space at an integrated swap-supercharging station is three times that of a standalone charging station. The point of this comparison rests on two scarce resources: “parking spaces” and “power capacity.” The number of parking spaces and distribution capacity at highway service areas are usually difficult to expand significantly, so service output per unit of resource becomes a key variable: battery swapping improves turnover by compressing the time each vehicle occupies a parking space, while supercharging piles retain a charging option for models not compatible with battery swapping, and the two complement each other within the same station.

From Energy Replenishment Nodes to Distributed Energy Storage: Extended Value on the Grid Side

Another noteworthy statement in the plan is that battery swap stations can also serve as distributed energy storage units, participating in grid peak shaving and frequency regulation and green power consumption.

The underlying logic is that battery swap stations themselves hold battery assets and have controllable charge-discharge timing: batteries in the station can be charged centrally during low electricity price periods or peaks of green power output, discharge to the grid during peak electricity consumption periods, or complete energy transfer through battery swapping. Compared with independent energy storage stations, the regulation capability of battery swap stations shares the same land, power, and equipment resources with the energy replenishment business, resulting in a different marginal cost structure.

However, whether this value can be realized depends on several conditions: whether station scale is sufficient to form aggregable regulation capacity; whether local electricity market and ancillary service rules are open to distributed resources; and how the lifespan and operation and maintenance costs of battery assets after participating in peak shaving and frequency regulation are accounted for. These details have not yet been given more specific definitions in this disclosure.

Variables to Watch Before Scale-Up

From the disclosed information, the pace of Chocolate Battery Swap's rollout is related to three types of variables. First, the cooperation model: the highway network is highly dependent on the willingness to advance and infrastructure schedules of provincial transportation groups and highway platforms; second, demand-side matching: network utilization ultimately depends on the ownership volume of compatible models and highway travel density, while highway traffic has obvious holiday tidal characteristics; third, standards and coordination: the degree of battery compatibility across brands and models determines the range of models that a single station can serve.

Overall, this plan extends battery swapping from urban energy replenishment scenarios to the highway trunk network and adds energy storage attributes, forming a dual narrative of “energy replenishment + electricity.” However, 3,000, 1,000, and 30,000 stations correspond respectively to near-term, medium-term, and long-term targets, and the implementation at each stage still needs to be judged by verifiable data such as the number of online stations, service counts per station, and provincial coverage progress.