CATL heavy-duty truck battery swap solution – QIJI Energy

There are about 9 million heavy trucks driving around China every day, and the phenomenon of slow charging, slow battery swap, and few battery swap stations is widespread, which brings the trouble of power exchange to the heavy truck drivers who drive long distances. On June 12, 2023, CATL launched a self-developed heavy-duty truck battery swap solution – QIJI Energy, providing a high-tech, standardized and low-cost battery swap system solution for building China’s heavy truck battery swapping network.

Characteristics of QIJI Energy

According to CATL’s introduction, QIJI Energy one-stop solution includes QIJI battery swap block, QIJI battery swap station and QIJI cloud platform. Among them, QIJI battery swap block is based on the third generation lithium iron phosphate chemical system of CATL, which adopts the original non-thermal diffusion technology of CATL, mature and efficient CTP group technology and 15,000 ultra-long life battery technology, which reduces the battery use cost of end users under the condition of ensuring the safety of use.

Through the modular design of each single 171kWh battery, the users can freely choose the number of 1-3 batteries for different road conditions, different distances, different loads and va scenarios, and distribute power on demand. In addition, the high-efficiency automatic power change system can complete the battery swap in only a few minutes, shortening the energy recharge time and greatly improving the transportation efficiency.

QIJI Cloud platform will rise the operation and transportation efficiency to a new height through the digital analysis and construction of the whole scene of battery swapping data, relying on the information interaction of vehicles, stations and batteries, the data will be aggregated into QIJI Cloud, and compute to achieve asset monitoring through big data, supports various functions including intelligent scheduling, battery swapping appointment, route planning,etc.

CATL heavy-duty truck battery swap layout

Although QIJI Energy is the latest heavy-duty truck battery swap product launched by CATL, in fact CATL has already entered the field of heavy-duty truck battery swap since a few years ago.

In July 2020, the heavy-duty truck for battery swap co-developed by CATL and Foton IBlue was delivered in Beijing, becoming the first commercial application scenario for heavy-duty truck battery swap. At the beginning of 22, CATL cooperated with Sany group to promote the heavy truck battery swap application demonstration project in Fujian.

In August 2022, CATL and FAW Jiefang established a joint venture company – Jiefang Times Energy, focusing on resource transportation, municipal engineering, urban sanitation, logistics distribution and other multi-scenario needs, and comprehensively carried out vehicle-electricity separation services and vehicle leasing and transport capacity undertaking services. on September 17, 2022, CATL released a new product in the field of battery swap – the MTB battery swap solution, and announced that it will be the first to be applied to Qiyuan Green Power heavy truck battery swap project of the State Power Investment Corporation.

According to reports, the MTB technology integrates the module directly into the vehicle bracket/chassis, the volume utilization rate of the system is increased by 40%, the weight is reduced by 10%, and the energy density of the system reaches 170Wh/kg. The battery can reach cycle life of 10,000 cycles/10 years. The original U-shaped water cooling system overcomes the problem of heat dissipation. In addition, the battery supports free combination schemes and can be configured within the range of 140KWh-600KWh.

In the first five months of 2023, a total of 13 car companies have newly applied for 34 new heavy-duty truck models. Among the models declared by 11 car companies, CATL is the number one supplier. CATL occupies a leading position in the current heavy-duty truck market.

Fast-growing heavy-duty truck battery swap market in China

Data shows that from January to April 2023, China’s cumulative sales of heavy trucks reached 328,000, which is an increase of 17.7%. In May, heavy truck sales fell by 16% compared with April, while the sales of new energy heavy trucks increased significantly. Statistics show that from January to April 2023, China’s new energy heavy truck sales was 6,860 units, an increase of 16.55%.

After achieving a sharp growth in February and March, the sales even surged 105.53% in April. From 2020 to 2022, the market share of electric heavy trucks was 23%, 34% and 54%, which means a rapid growth and huge future space.

It is estimated that the total number of new energy heavy trucks in China this year is expected to reach 50,000, of which the electric heavy trucks will account for about 70%, and the sales of electric heavy trucks will exceed 100,000 in 2025 and more than 300,000 in 2030.

China’s electric heavy truck has ushered in a new growth stage of policy support and market-oriented, and the market space of electric heavy truck will reach 46.8 billion RMB in 2025 and 92.2 billion RMB in 2030. The compound growth rate of heavy truck sales in 2022-2025 is expected to exceed 100%, which will drive the increase in the number of battery swap stations and open the market space for key equipment parts.

Problems facing heavy-duty truck battery swap mode

Compared with the passenger car field, the battery swap mode in the heavy-duty truck field has more obvious advantages than the charging mode, mainly because electric heavy trucks require more battery power. However, the current heavy-duty truck battery swap mode still has problems such as the lack of a unified industry standard for the swap station and the high construction cost of it, but these problems will gradually be fixed.

A few days ago, the China Electric Heavy Truck Battery Swap Industry Promotion Alliance and the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance jointly launched the “Heavy Truck Battery Swap Industry Interchange Development Initiative”. Industrial organizations such as, Sinochem, Sanxia Lvdong, CATL, SAIC Hongyan, Geely Sunshine Island, Beiqi Foton, Sinotruk, CNHTC, YUTONG, SANY and XCMG New Energy and Qiyuan Green Power, one of the top 10 ev battery swapping companies in China, responded together.

This initiative establishes the overall plan for interoperability and swapping, clarifies the positioning of industries, manufacturers, associations, etc., formulates the development path of interoperability and swapping, and proposes to jointly build an ecology of the interoperability and swapping industry to jointly realize the China industry vision.

The “Heavy Truck Battery Swap Industry Interchange Development Initiative” will serve as a milestone in the exploration of battery swap interoperability and interchange, leading the healthy and sustainable development of the battery swap industry in an all-round way.
At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China will study and compile a standard system for battery replacement technology, and promote the unification of battery size, battery swapping interface, and communication protocols.

The significance of QIJI Energy

What is the impact of the release of the QIJI Energy one-stop solution on the entire market? CATL believes that it is of great significance to the cost control, green low-carbon and industrial upgrading of the logistics industry, which has brought new opportunities and directions to the traditional transportation industry.

The first significance is to reduce the cost of heavy truck transportation. Relying on the ultra-long life battery technology and efficient power swap service of QIJI Energy, combined with the business model of vehicle-electric separation, without considering oil price fluctuations and the increasing costs of vehicle acquisition, the total use cost of 200,000 kilometers of heavy trucks can be saved by 30,000-60,000 RMB per year, which greatly reduces the cost pressure of heavy truck transportation.

Secondly, the emissions of carbon dioxide and air pollutants are reduces, which helps achieving the carbon neutrality goal. Taking the long-distance trunk transportation scenario as an example, the total carbon emission of 9 million heavy trucks in China is as high as 440 million tons a year, and the application of the one-stop solution will effectively deal with the carbon emission problem caused by heavy truck transportation.

QIJI Energy is just a starting point for the transformation from traditional heavy trucks to future heavy trucks. Through the platform, modular design, to achieve the versatility of different vehicles and different scenarios of battery swapping, so as to lay the foundation for the construction of the whole China power change network, from the technical and system architecture to achieve the advance layout of future needs, to cope with and accelerate the pace of electrification of the heavy truck industry, to achieve the industrial upgrading of the heavy truck industry.