Octopus, CATL Launch Swaptopus EV Truck Battery-Swap JV
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- Octopus Energy and CATL announced "Swaptopus," a joint venture unveiled at Octopus's Energy Tech Summit in London, to build battery-swapping hubs for electric trucks across the UK and Europe.
- The swap model lets drivers replace depleted truck batteries with fully charged ones in just a few minutes, with each "mega hub" expected to serve thousands of lorries daily.
- The companies say the first mega hubs will open in the UK in 2027, with more than 30 hubs planned by 2035.
- A fully built-out network could support more than 300,000 electric trucks and unlock over £30 billion in private investment, per the partners.
- The venture aims to reduce Europe's reliance on imported oil by replacing diesel with electricity, and the partners are also exploring vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities through CATL's global automotive partnerships.
- CATL has already rolled out heavy-truck battery swapping at scale in China and is now bringing that field-proven model to Europe, per chairman and CEO Robin Zeng.
Why it matters: Commercial trucking is the rare segment where battery swapping economics may actually work: fleets run fixed routes, downtime is expensive, and a few-minute swap beats a multi-hour charge for high-utilization vehicles. The £30 billion investment figure and 2035 build-out target signal Octopus and CATL believe the model scales in Europe where it has repeatedly failed for consumer EVs.
