Octopus Energy and CATL are bringing a battery-swapping model already used at scale in China to Europe’s growing electric truck market.
The UK energy company and the Chinese battery giant announced a new joint venture today at Octopus Energy’s Energy Tech Summit in London. The venture, called “Swaptopus,” aims to build a network of battery-swapping hubs for electric trucks across the UK and Europe.
The partnership combines CATL’s battery technology and experience operating swapping stations in China with Octopus’s energy supply, trading, and software capabilities.
Instead of charging up a large truck battery, drivers would pull into a swapping station, remove the depleted battery, install a fully charged one, and hit the road again in just a few minutes:
Octopus Energy Group founder and CEO Greg Jackson explained to us at the summit, “We’ll have a massive stack of batteries at these stations that we can fill with the cheapest electricity at the cheapest times. You can give a truck 500 kWh of electricity, but you took it from the grid when the grid was empty. You’re using spare capacity making electricity cheaper for everybody, cutting the cost of trucking and cleaning it up.”
Octopus and CATL say the first “mega hubs” are expected to open in the UK in 2027, with more than 30 planned by 2035. Each hub is expected to serve thousands of lorries a day.
Big truck battery swapping has already gained traction in China, where CATL has been rolling it out at scale. The companies now want to bring that model to Europe’s freight sector.
Dr. Robin Zeng, chairman and CEO of CATL, said in a statement, “Battery swapping will be a significant part of the future of commercial transport. We have field-proven this technology in China, and we are delighted to bring it to the UK and Europe as part of our joint venture with Octopus.”
Once fully built out, Octopus and CATL say the network could support more than 300,000 electric trucks and help unlock over £30 billion in private investment. They also make the point that it would reduce Europe’s reliance on imported oil by replacing diesel with electricity generated closer to home.
There’s another piece to the plan, too. The batteries sitting at these swapping hubs won’t just be waiting around for trucks. The two companies are also exploring ways to expand vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology through CATL’s global automotive partnerships.
Battery swapping for passenger cars has struggled to gain widespread adoption because it requires automakers to standardize battery packs and invest in dedicated infrastructure. Heavy-duty trucking may be a different story. Commercial fleets tend to follow fixed routes, downtime is expensive, and getting trucks back on the road quickly can have a much bigger financial impact.
That’s why companies like CATL are betting that battery swapping could become an important part of the electric freight ecosystem.
Read more: A UK energy giant is investing $1B in California clean tech
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