Ultra-fast charging vs. battery swapping: who will win the final battle in the new energy heavy truck market?

No one expected that the fastest-growing segment of the new energy market this year would be heavy trucks.

Public data shows that from January to August 2025, a total of 113,600 new energy heavy trucks were sold in China, a year-on-year increase of 191%. Even the penetration rate quickly climbed to 26.07% in June 2025, just one step away from the 30% critical point.

Once, heavy trucks were considered the least likely to be electrified due to their low load capacity, short range, and high price.

With continuous technological progress, new energy heavy trucks have reached a relatively high level of maturity and are "robust" enough on their own.

The strong policy drive (national subsidies + local subsidies + mandatory use policies introduced in some areas) has also added fuel to the popularity of new energy heavy trucks.

More importantly, the economic benefits of new energy heavy trucks are becoming increasingly apparent:

Taking a 49-ton electric heavy truck as an example, with a power consumption of 150 kWh per 100 kilometers and a commercial electricity price of 1.2 yuan/kWh, the energy consumption cost is only 180 yuan, 37% cheaper than refueling a diesel heavy truck of the same tonnage.

Since the second half of 2023, with the decline in power battery costs, the price of new energy heavy trucks has dropped sharply from the initial 700,000 - 800,000 yuan per vehicle to around 400,000 yuan per vehicle, basically on par with fuel heavy trucks of the same level (about 350,000 - 450,000 yuan per vehicle).

Innovations in financial models such as separating the vehicle from the battery have also rapidly lowered the entry threshold for new energy heavy trucks.

However, there are two major camps on how to divide this market:

The battery-swapping camp, including CATL, Qiyuan Core Power, and GCL New Energy;

The fast-charging camp, including Huawei and Sunwoda.

The world's first 100-megawatt heavy truck supercharging station is officially put into operation. Image source: Truck Home

So, which route will be the winner in this segment?

If we look at it simply, fast charging and battery swapping seem to only address:

Who can replenish energy faster. But in fact, what the two sides are really competing for is a hidden financial and scenario logic.

This competition is essentially a trinity contest of cost, scenario, and ecosystem.

01

The Battle of Costs

Different from the consumer nature of passenger cars, heavy trucks are pure production materials, and the primary evaluation criterion is the input-output ratio.

Battery swapping and fast charging represent two different routes:

In terms of vehicle purchase, when buying a battery-swapping heavy truck, you can choose the "separation of vehicle and battery" model, which means you only need to pay for the vehicle, not the battery, greatly reducing the one-time investment cost.

However, the situation is completely different in daily operations:

According to data from an operator, the construction cost of the company's battery-swapping station is about 5 million yuan, equipped with 28 batteries. The maximum number of battery swaps per day can reach 288 times, and the station can break even when the number of battery swaps reaches 60 vehicles per day, that is, the utilization rate needs to reach 20.83% to avoid losses.

This high cost will ultimately be apportioned into the battery-swapping service fees, which are borne by transportation companies and drivers.

In addition, the battery-swapping model also faces real challenges such as non-uniform standards (it can only serve heavy trucks of specified specifications) and a relatively single source of income as it cannot serve private cars.

Compared with battery-swapping stations, the biggest competitive advantage of the charging model is undoubtedly the relatively low energy replenishment price.

Public data shows that the construction cost of a charging station using ordinary fast chargers is about 2 million yuan, with a relatively low investment cost. Therefore, drivers can save a significant amount on each energy replenishment compared to the battery-swapping model, which can attract a large number of customers.

Highest

Thus, a rather magical reality has emerged:

Many drivers choose to buy battery-swapping heavy trucks but still use ordinary charging piles for energy replenishment, leaving many battery-swapping station owners shivering in the cold.

The biggest advantage of the battery-swapping model is its extremely fast energy replenishment speed, which can fully replenish the battery in 5 to 10 minutes. Even fast charging, which claims to charge 80% in 15 minutes, still has an obvious disadvantage in comparison.

However, in many scenarios, long-distance drivers do not need to replenish power urgently. Instead, they take advantage of the gaps between waiting for jobs and queuing to replenish a small amount of energy multiple times. A single fast charge that can provide enough power to run dozens of kilometers is enough to take on a single job.

In fact, for drivers, new energy heavy trucks are a simple tool for making money or earning a living. Although the energy replenishment speed is indeed important,

they do not need an extremely fast energy replenishment speed that requires extra money.

In short, in terms of business models, battery swapping has a low one-time cost, while charging has a low operating cost. It is difficult to determine a winner for the time being, so the battlefield has shifted to scenarios.

02

Decisive Scenarios

During the process of new energy heavy trucks expanding into all scenarios, both battery swapping and charging have found their niches.

The battery-swapping model is suitable for relatively closed and ultra-high-frequency turnover scenarios, such as ports, mines, steel mills, or trunk highways for medium- and long-distance transportation of large quantities of goods (such as coal).

The charging model is relatively more open and is more suitable for scenarios with lower turnover frequencies and higher price sensitivity, such as goods transportation within urban agglomerations and urban muck transportation.

Let's take examples to illustrate and explore the underlying principles.

Public data shows that among the 100 battery-swapping stations of a certain battery-swapping station brand, 13 stations have been heavily invested in the Cangyu Expressway (G1812), a coal transportation route.

Battery-swapping stations on the Cangyu Expressway. Image source: State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the People's Government of Shaanxi Province

Why does this battery-swapping station brand attach so much importance to this route? Can't the charging route work on this route?

First, policy support.

As one of the regions with the greatest environmental protection pressure in the country, local governments along the route have a strong motivation to promote the electrification of heavy trucks to replace traditional fuel heavy trucks. Therefore, they have given full support and provided a lot of assistance in aspects such as coordinating construction sites and grid cooperation.

Second, highly concentrated demand.

The intensive coal transportation demand brings enough vehicles, and enough vehicles bring enough energy replenishment demand. Whether it is battery swapping or charging, there will be a high utilization rate.

Finally, and most importantly, the total length of the Cangyu Expressway reaches 730 kilometers.

Over such a long transportation distance, new energy heavy trucks under the current technology must replenish energy several times to complete the journey.

It should be noted that the client often has rather strict requirements for the total transportation time (for example, when transporting vegetables from Ningxia to Zhengzhou, the total transportation distance exceeds 1,000 kilometers, but the total transportation time is only about 18 hours).

If the transportation is delayed by 2 hours just for one energy replenishment, the total transportation time will definitely exceed the standard significantly.

For transportation companies, the losses are often not only the fines for this single order but also the possibility of losing a large number of business opportunities.

Therefore, for scenarios like the Cangyu Expressway, which are medium- and long-distance, have a large total freight volume, high turnover, and are relatively closed, the extremely fast energy replenishment time (5 to 10 minutes per time) is the biggest weapon of the battery-swapping model.

After a single energy replenishment, the truck can run 300 kilometers, and only three energy replenishments are needed, which has little impact on the total transportation time. Moreover, the total cost is much more cost-effective than simply using a large battery.

Let's look at an example of a charging station.

Tangshan is home to many large industrial enterprises such as Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant and Tangshan Sanyou Chemical Industry, which makes the demand for short- and medium-distance transportation extremely strong. Heavy trucks are an indispensable transportation force, especially for the transportation of raw materials and finished products between factories.

After two phases of construction, the Jingneng Tangshan Charging Station has become a leading station with 60 charging guns (including 16 320kW integrated dual-gun DC charging piles).

From January to October 2024 alone, the cumulative charging volume of the Tangshan Charging Station reached 19.83 million kWh, and the highest daily charging volume soared to 120,000 kWh, achieving both economic and social benefits.

It can be said that:

The battery-swapping model is suitable for long-distance scenarios, while the charging model is suitable for short- and medium-distance scenarios. The two are evenly matched again.

03

The Battle of Ecosystems

Another aspect that cannot be ignored behind supercharging and battery swapping is:

These two systems are not isolated but require a complete ecosystem solution to support them.

To make the supercharging technology exert its advertised charging speed advantage, vehicles must also use high-standard 5C-certified batteries with higher costs. For many users, they may even need to replace their vehicles.

In addition, the impact of charging stations using supercharging technology on the power grid is much higher than that of charging stations using traditional technology.

A megawatt power means that the peak power consumption of a single charging pile is equivalent to that of 300 household air conditioners. If there are dozens of charging piles at the same time, the impact on the power grid will be no less than that of a small factory.

If supercharging stations are densely deployed on trunk lines, coordinating the power grid will become an even more important task than the huge capital investment.

For battery swapping, although operators often claim that in addition to energy replenishment income, they can also store green electricity for their own use and are more suitable as distributed energy storage nodes to participate in power grid peak shaving, thereby obtaining additional arbitrage income.

However, at present, it is difficult to realize this additional income. Moreover, it also faces real challenges such as non-uniform standards (it can only serve heavy trucks of specified specifications) and a relatively single source of income as it cannot serve private cars.

In summary, as the electrification of Chinese commercial vehicles approaches the 30% critical point, what is increasing is not only the number but also the starting point of ecosystem reconstruction.

At present, neither supercharging nor battery swapping has achieved a crushing victory over the other in the three dimensions. Instead, they are evenly matched.

Therefore, to win in this chaotic battle of energy replenishment for new energy heavy trucks, it is necessary to consider the system competitiveness in all dimensions. For example, price factors such as vehicle price, battery price, battery-swapping equipment and charging equipment price, and recycling price should be taken into account to calculate the economic accounts;

Non-price factors such as the degree of impact on the power grid, energy replenishment time, standardization level, technology iteration speed (too fast technology iteration will cause a substantial drop in the price of previous-generation equipment), and equipment adaptability also need to be considered.

However, everything should be planned around the actual user group and combined with specific scenarios. After all, for drivers who are under the heavy pressure of vehicle loans, freight advances, and high insurance premiums,

they may not be good at other things, but they are very careful with accounts.

This article is from the WeChat public account "New Energy Industry Expert", author: Ke Le, editor: Chen Shuai. Republished by 36Kr with permission.