Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology plans to invest up to CNY2.5 billion (USD346 million) in Nio Energy Investment to deepen its alliance with the electric vehicle startup.

CATL and Nio will make jointly efforts to let battery swap network accessible to all passenger EV brands, the Shanghai-based EV maker announced on WeChat today, citing a deal the pair inked yesterday. The move aims to unify industry technical standards and integrate capital and operational resources, it added.

CATL and Nio will promote adopting and upgrading battery swap services based on unified battery standards to create the world's largest and most advanced passenger EV battery swap network, the carmaker added.

As an initial example of the alliance, CATL's Choco-Swap technology standard and network will be adopted into upcoming models under Nio's new third brand, Firefly.

CATL and Nio plan to jointly advance the establishment of national battery swap standards to achieve cross-brand and cross-model battery compatibility. They also intend to set up a closed-loop system spanning the entire battery lifecycle from research and development and swap services to asset management, secondary use, and material recycling.

Ningde-based CATL, the world's largest EV battery maker, and Nio are pioneers in battery swap technology and have formed separate networks.

Nio has 3,172 battery swap stations across China and aims to reach full coverage in over 2,300 county-level regions across 27 provinces and municipalities by the end of this year. CATL aims to expand its swapping stations to more than 30 cities and exceed 500 swap facilities in 2025.

In March 2024, CATL said it signed an agreement with Nio to "research and development of long service life batteries, jointly tackle key technical problems, promote technical innovations, and accelerate the implementation of long service life battery solutions in battery swapping scenarios."