On October 20, CATL (03750) held a launch event in Beijing for its "Sure Win 2027" Tianxing II heavy truck lineup and Qiji battery swap ecosystem.

Heavy trucks account for only about 9% of global vehicle numbers but contribute a quarter of carbon emissions from the entire transportation sector, including aviation and shipping, making the global decarbonization push a powerful driver of heavy truck electrification.

CATL unveiled its optimal solution for the heavy truck ecosystem, the Tianxing II "Electric-Electric Range Extender" edition, built on a battery swap system that splits the underfloor swap architecture into two independently operating and functionally complementary battery systems, breaking the technical boundaries of a single system and delivering all-around upgrades in performance, efficiency and flexibility.

The Tianxing II "Electric-Electric Range Extender" edition goes into mass production immediately upon launch, with an initial signed deployment of 13,000 units. CATL also rolled out a full Qiji battery swap ecosystem solution, introduced several new battery leasing policies, and announced two partnership models, the "Qiji Battery Partner" and the "Qiji Energy Partner," joining 14 partners to kick off the "CATL Qiji Battery Swap Ecosystem" co-construction ceremony. At the same time, targeting differentiated application scenarios, CATL released four charging products, including the industry's lightest rear-mounted heavy truck battery at the same capacity, the Tianxing II Rear Ultra-Light edition, the industry's thinnest battery, the Tianxing II Rear Ultra-Thin edition, as well as the Tianxing II underfloor short-wheelbase and long-range editions, covering all scenarios to effectively meet user needs.

"Electric-Electric Range Extender" is the optimal solution for the heavy truck ecosystem

Electric heavy truck penetration was only 5.2% in 2022, climbed steadily to 28.9% in 2025, and in a single month, September 2026, reached 50.28%. The oil-versus-electric battle in heavy truck electrification is over, and the industry is about to enter the electric-versus-electric competition phase.

Wang Jingzhu, Executive President of CATL's Heavy Industry Business Unit, believes that the most fundamental need for truck drivers and fleet operators is securing a deterministic win. In the electric-versus-electric competition phase, one cannot look only at single-point advantages but must focus on long-term lifecycle value. CATL proposed a "nine-word winning formula": fast payback, more profit, high residual value.

CATL's newly launched "Electric-Electric Range Extender" battery swap system is a perfect response to this formula. First, fast payback. The "Electric-Electric Range Extender" adopts an "A+B" model, where A is the underfloor swap battery pack and B is a range extender pack that travels with the vehicle. The vehicle-battery separation model lowers purchase costs and speeds up payback. The underfloor main drive battery does not need to be purchased and is instead leased, and combined with purchase subsidies, flexible battery leasing plans and low-interest installment financing policies, the upfront one-time investment is reduced to the same level as a fuel heavy truck. At the same time, the battery pricing, lease-start and lease-stop mechanisms follow the vehicle's deployment, peak and off-peak seasons and second-hand disposal rhythm, converting part of the fixed cost into variable cost and avoiding rigid rental pressure during idle periods.

Second, more profit. Based on CATL's battery quality, the "Electric-Electric Range Extender" battery also delivers lower energy consumption and higher energy density than the industry, helping truck drivers save electricity and money while carrying more and running more. CATL's "Electric-Electric Range Extender" also solves the problem of traditional swap vehicles "not daring to use up the battery." Traditional swap vehicles typically return to the station at about 30% SOC; with the range extender system as a backstop, the underfloor main drive battery supports deep discharge, lowering the return SOC to below 5% and improving battery utilization efficiency. At low charge, the system can switch to the range extender battery in milliseconds without perceptible interruption, ensuring continuous and stable power output and reducing downtime risk. Leveraging Qiji's swap capability, a full charge can be achieved in just 5 minutes before departure, saving time to the greatest extent. Through centralized battery management, long-life design and power redundancy, it can also reduce user investment in battery maintenance, degradation management and unplanned downtime.

Third, high residual value. Second-hand vehicles equipped with CATL batteries have residual values 10% higher than the industry. On top of that, the "Electric-Electric Range Extender" gives truck drivers self-owned battery assets, adds exclusive battery subsidies, and brings the residual value ratio in line with fuel vehicles, reshaping the evaluation system for used electric heavy truck residual values. Wang Jingzhu said that with the rollout of "Electric-Electric Range Extender" products and the improvement of CATL's Qiji battery swap ecosystem, the swap model will split the market evenly with the charging model. "Electric-Electric Range Extender" is the optimal solution for the heavy truck ecosystem and will drive the heavy truck industry fully into the battery swap era.

After the launch of Tianxing II "Electric-Electric Range Extender," CATL signed cooperation agreements with multiple companies including China Post, Hunan Steel, Chongqing Logistics, Chengshi Group, SF Express, Jianlong Group, STO Express, Bashu Logistics, YTO Express, Hongsheng Group and Xiaolong Transport, with an initial signed deployment of 13,000 units.

Qiji battery swap is the optimal solution for electrifying trunk-line logistics

In the process of heavy truck electrification, long-haul trunk-line transport is widely regarded as the most difficult and highest-value segment. Trunk-line transport races against the clock, time is directly tied to cost, and a stopped vehicle means operational loss. Under the traditional charging model, the industry mainly relied on stacking battery capacity and increasing charging rates to trade for range and replenishment speed, but ultimately fell into ineffective involution marked by lower payload, higher costs and worsening battery degradation.

Yang Jun, CEO of Times Qiji, believes that the real breakthrough lies in energy replenishment network coverage and optimal resource allocation, and that Qiji battery swap is the optimal solution for electrifying trunk-line logistics. In highway trunk-line scenarios, land, time, grid and payload are four extremely scarce resources, and the core advantage of CATL's Qiji battery swap lies in achieving globally optimal allocation of these four scarce resources through network scheduling and model innovation.

In terms of time efficiency, Qiji's 5-minute standardized replenishment can replace the uncertain 1 to 2 hour wait of traditional charging, enabling standardized management of vehicle scheduling and timeliness commitments. To improve time efficiency, can heavy truck batteries replicate the 10C and 15C high-rate replenishment route of passenger cars? Gao Huan, CATL's CTO for domestic passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles, believes that it is technically feasible but not economically worthwhile. According to Joule's law, when current doubles, heat generation grows quadratically; since heavy truck batteries have large capacity, blindly pushing high rates will cause thermal losses to rise exponentially, with large amounts of electricity converted into heat and wasted during charging, while also requiring an extra cooling system and secondary energy consumption. The dozen or so minutes saved by high rates often cannot offset the cost of electricity losses and accelerated battery depreciation.

In terms of land efficiency, highway service areas are extremely valuable, and traditional charging spaces are occupied for 1 to 2 hours per session, while a Qiji swap station requires only 2 standard parking spaces and can serve nearly 200 vehicle visits per day, increasing energy service efficiency per unit of land by 5 times. In terms of payload efficiency, under the swap model the battery is fully charged in the station and used immediately when installed, with no need to wait an extra 20 to 30 minutes for the final 10% trickle charge, allowing vehicles to depart fully loaded with a reasonable amount of power, achieving "returning weight to payload, space to design and range to mileage." In terms of grid adaptation efficiency, swap stations use a centralized, orderly slow-charging model and, together with an intelligent energy scheduling system that links vehicle, station, battery and grid data across the board, naturally achieve peak shaving and valley filling, avoiding the peak impact of high-power ultra-fast charging on the distribution network.

At present, the country is vigorously advancing zero-carbon highway transport corridor construction, laying out a 30,000-kilometer "5 radial, 4 vertical and 5 horizontal" zero-carbon corridor around the national highway network. Qiji's nationwide battery swap green network of eight horizontal and ten vertical lines is highly aligned with and precisely matched to the national strategy. Qiji battery swap is working with provincial transportation investment groups, highway groups and logistics leaders across the country to jointly build a national-level heavy truck trunk-line energy replenishment network.

"Electric-Electric Range Extender" plus Qiji battery swap drives heavy trucks fully into the battery swap era

Times Qiji CEO Yang Jun said that the industry's real bottleneck has never been whether electric trucks can run, but whether a positive business flywheel can be built that gives users the confidence to buy, fleets the confidence to operate, channels the confidence to invest and the industry sustainable development, so that every stakeholder in the electrification chain can benefit from participation. CATL plans to make heavy truck electrification truly work, remain stable and win the future through a standardized foundation, nationwide new infrastructure and a full-cycle co-construction, symbiosis and win-win ecosystem.

Standardization is the prerequisite for scale. First, Qiji battery swap innovatively defines swap blocks by volume and dimensions and released two new standardized swap blocks: 260# (432 kWh) and 300# (513 kWh), with 260# suitable for 3.8-meter wheelbase models and 300# suitable for 4.2-meter wheelbase models. The 260# and 300# swap blocks and the 77 kWh pack of "Electric-Electric Range Extender" form a dual-core architecture, becoming a platform-level product through "built-in basic power plus underfloor standard large battery," and in the future battery packs with different chemistries and capacities can be developed to fit all scenarios.

Second, the all-new Qiji swap station 3.0, while maintaining 5-minute ultra-fast swapping and a 99.99% single-swap success rate, achieves upgrades in five dimensions: broader compatibility, higher efficiency, easier promotion, better cost and better experience, with single-day service frequency up 28% and station construction cost down 10%. In addition, the battery leasing plan has been fully overhauled, leading the industry in billing by charged electricity volume, with all recovered energy belonging to the user, and basic package users' per-kWh rental cost falling by as much as 20%. The biggest advantage of the "Electric-Electric Range Extender" product is flexible battery leasing and on-demand battery allocation, with options including a one-year minimum lease and a maximum delay of 3 months for new vehicles to start the lease, covering the window period for registration and operational preparation; during second-hand vehicle transactions, the lease can be stopped 2 months in advance. Overall, based on an average daily transport distance of 400 kilometers, a single "Electric-Electric Range Extender" vehicle saves 130,000 yuan per year in energy replenishment cost compared with a diesel vehicle; on a full-cycle basis including purchase, energy replenishment, maintenance, finance and insurance, and residual value, the 3-year TCO is 70,000 yuan lower than an electric vehicle with a bought-out battery and more than 460,000 yuan lower than a diesel heavy truck.

New infrastructure is the skeleton of the ecosystem. Qiji battery swap has already run through five major trunk lines, Guangdong-Shanghai, Chengdu-Wuhan, Cangzhou-Yulin, Ningde-Xiamen and Hainan Island Ring, with stable network operating mileage exceeding 5 million kilometers. According to the plan, Qiji battery swap will build 900 swap stations by the end of this year to create a 1.5-hour trunk-line energy replenishment circle; 2,000 stations by 2027 to achieve full coverage of the national highway trunk network; and the long-term endgame is to deploy 10,000 swap stations, making electric heavy trucks the mainstream choice for China's trunk-line logistics.

Full-ecosystem co-construction, symbiosis and win-win is an essential path. Qiji battery swap links OEMs, finance, insurance, channels and the aftermarket to build a complete ecosystem product matrix around the full lifecycle of vehicle "buying, using, maintaining and transferring," and released two partnership models, the "Qiji Battery Partner" and the "Qiji Energy Partner," realizing an industry upgrade from "selling a vehicle" to "jointly operating a vehicle." CATL has launched "Hundred Cities, Hundred Sites" partner recruitment, aiming to work with 1,000 partners this year and 10,000 cumulatively over three years, supported by three cooperation policies: in insurance, Qiji battery swap users have achieved smooth nationwide coverage, with average premiums reduced to 24,000 yuan, and the first 3,000 "Electric-Electric Range Extender" vehicles purchased through cooperative channels receive a 12,000 yuan rebate per vehicle for auto insurance; in finance, "Partner Battery Order Financing" is now online, allowing partners to obtain additional credit based on the Qiji battery repurchase contract, and the first 1,000 partners can obtain zero-cost supply chain finance solutions; in second-hand vehicles, value-preservation rights are provided for the first owners of the first 10,000 "Electric-Electric Range Extender" vehicles, up to 15,000 yuan per vehicle. On the day of the launch event, CATL joined 14 automakers and dealers including FAW Jiefang, XCMG Automobile, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle, Foton Daimler, Shaanxi Proton, Sinotruk and Sany to jointly launch the "CATL Qiji Battery Swap Ecosystem" co-construction ceremony.

Four charging products: differentiated full-scenario solutions

Different operating scenarios have different requirements for heavy truck batteries, and CATL simultaneously launched four charging products, providing differentiated solutions for four types of scenarios: standard-load short-haul, engineering dump, mountainous and port narrow roads, and long-haul trunk lines.

For the largest domestic use case, standard-load short-haul operation, CATL created the industry's lightest rear-mounted heavy truck battery at the same capacity, the Tianxing II Rear Ultra-Light edition. Without compromising capacity, safety or lifespan, it is half a ton lighter than the industry average at the same capacity; based on typical short-haul operating conditions, the extra cargo hauled can earn 12,000 yuan more per year. It also significantly lowers battery height and center of gravity, leaving drivers a clear rear-window view while making cornering and highway driving more stable and safer.

For engineering dump trucks that repeatedly start and stop under heavy loads, escape mud and climb long slopes on construction sites, mines and mountainous areas, CATL targeted the three major pain points of "lost volume, slow acceleration and high energy consumption" to create the industry's thinnest rear battery, the Tianxing II Rear Ultra-Thin edition. Battery thickness is compressed from 860 mm to 580 mm, and with a short cab the cargo box length is increased to 8.8 meters, matching the loading capacity of a fuel truck; based on typical operating conditions, the loading volume that previously required 10 vehicles can now be completed with only 9, increasing revenue by 25,000 yuan per vehicle per year.

For traditional long-wheelbase electric heavy trucks' inherent weaknesses in mountain curves, port maneuvering and narrow in-plant roads, CATL launched the Tianxing II underfloor short-wheelbase edition. With an underfloor battery layout matched to an ultra-short vehicle wheelbase, it mass-produces a 3.35-meter wheelbase model, on par with traditional fuel heavy trucks, 0.45 meters shorter than the industry's common 3.8-meter wheelbase, truly achieving "oil-electric same wheelbase," and supports a minimum vehicle wheelbase of 3.2 meters. The shorter wheelbase reduces turning radius, improves passability and provides a more stable posture on steep climbs.

For long-haul trunk-line scenarios, CATL released the Tianxing II underfloor long-range edition after comprehensively assessing purchase cost, deadweight loss impact and operating efficiency. With 760 kWh, it achieves a single-charge range of more than 600 kilometers, allowing direct one-charge trips on most interprovincial trunk lines. Paired with an 800V high-voltage platform, it replenishes 300 kilometers in 20 minutes, allowing a full charge before departure during a rest or unloading break at a distribution center, and offers an ultra-long warranty of 1.5 million kilometers.

At present, more than 430,000 electric heavy trucks nationwide are equipped with CATL battery products, accounting for more than 70% of the entire industry. At this critical period when the heavy truck industry is upgrading from the oil-versus-electric battle to electric-versus-electric competition, CATL's "Electric-Electric Range Extender," as the best solution for the heavy truck ecosystem, together with Qiji battery swap, is driving the heavy truck industry fully into the battery swap era through a "standardization, new infrastructure and full ecosystem" layout.