Image: Lei Xing via X
In November, GAC, an Australian-bound automotive giant from China, unveiled an electric hatchback called the Aion UT. Then in September this year, a pink Aion UT was spotted testing on Australian roads, hinting at the potential of that car making it into our market in the near future.
Now, a new variant of the Aion UT has been shown to be able to swap an empty pack for a charged one in just 88 seconds, quicker than its advertised speed of just 99 seconds.
The Aion UT Super is expected to be priced from under $A22,000 and comes equipped with the latest battery-swapping tech from the world’s biggest battery maker, CATL, called the Choco swap.
In a video shared by Thinkercar on X, the new Aion UT is seen driving into CATL’s new battery swap station and gets its battery swapped automatically, in just 88 seconds.
A fully charged battery pack can deliver up to 500 km of NEDC range, which is likely to be closer to 400 km on the WLTP cycle used in Australia.
CATL’s new Choco battery swap stations also appear to be faster than the global leader in battery swap stations, Nio, which recently completed 90 million battery swaps for EVs.
The battery for the Aion UT Super is a CATL-produced, Choco 54 kWh Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) pack.
According to Chinese EV industry expert and analyst, Lei Xing, CATL has already rolled out 777 Choco battery swap stations, with the plan to rolling out 1,000 sites by the end of 2025.
These sites will be across 45 cities and are expected to be ramped up to 120 cities in 2026, thanks to a network of 2,500 expected open sites.
Long term, the company aims to roll out over 30,000 stations across China and could even have implications for international markets.
CATL’s Choco battery-swapping tech is expected to be available in future models, making battery swapping a bigger part of electrifying transport.
The Aion UT is competing with the popular MG4 and BYD Dolphin in the hatchback segment. It was launched at the 2024 Guangzhou Auto Show.
The Aion UT has been delivered in China since Q1 2025, with international markets like Thailand seeing entry in Q2. This sets the path for what is to come in Australia in the coming months.
This new GAC Aion UT Super variant with CATL’s Choco battery swap tech could be the first of many models to feature this in months to come, helping battery swapping play a bigger role in the EV transition.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
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Can't wait for this to be in regional areas.
It's too hard for companies to put in chargers, with both demand and DNSP paperwork.
Something like this that takes up more land space as well as a large power connection will succeed where dumb cable chargers have failed.
With low enough throughout you could literally have a single three-phase connection fully charging a battery every 3 hours. In a remote rural area you're probably unlikely to get more than 8 swaps in a single day. Sounds easier than requiring a 50+ kW supply.
Of course there's no data on the myriad swap stations across China so nobody could possibly have any idea how it could work...
It doesn't take up much more space, if the total swap takes 2.5 minutes that would 12 swaps every 30 minutes, to have 12 evs charging you would need a lot more space, where space is a premium you could have the batteries underground, and a drive through service could be possible.
That's,,,,impressive!
It would be interesting to know a little more about the logistics of this operation. Are the used batteries stacked and getting immediately charged on site or re-locate for re-charge? Rapid cycling should give the operator excellent data on battery deterioration.
They will recharge on site and check on the battery each swap.
The car is still sitting there after 2 minutes. That's not exactly 88 seconds. The actual removing and replacing the battery might be 88 seconds but there is almost the same amount of time driving in and aligning the car and waiting for the boom gate to open then driving out.
I will still take a fast charge on a long trip over this as you are stuck in the car with battery swaps before you actually start taking a break.
Why not have both options, there might not be chargers at every destination, slow or fast charge if convenient, a quick swap on the highway on the way to something might be more convenient. Also they can do a battery check each swap. Also swap stations can be automated, so you might need to be there. Cheap ev that's convenient and no battery worries. Sounds good to me.
Assuming these operate like the Nio stations, you don't "drive" in or out. The system does it for you. One of the reasons it is popular is that you don't buy the battery, you "rent" it (BaaS Battery as a Service). Your initial outlay for the car is lower.
These cars also have a charge port so you can always charge the battery as well, if you like.
Another possibility in some Nio cars is to rent a bigger capacity battery, say for a long trip, then change back to a smaller one for regular day to day use.
In this particular video he drove the car in manually and it has a lateral floor adjustment to align the car correctly.
I don't believe you have that option of specifying the battery capacity going by Bjorn Nyland's recent videos.
88 seconds? But I want it now
For those interested: in terms of dimensions, the Aion UT is quoted at 4270mm long, 1850mm wide, 1575mm tall and with a wheelbase of 2750mm. That's quite a bit 'fatter' than the BYD Dolphin and other similar vehicles. Not really a City car IMHO.
More of a city car than the klugers and rangers everyone in melbourne seems to drive...
Most Chinese cars a wide. The ”smaller" Deepal S05 is almost as wide as the S07 at 190cm.
Too true! And what a shame.
Don't really care about 88 second swaps , but I like the idea of the ability to swap after the battery looses reasonable capacity or needs replacement without destroying the car.
Convenient with no battery worries, what else do you want.
Not to pay for battery use every month for duration of ownership.
Not the answer! Sure it will work in China were the government decides which houses are knocked down to set up all the infrastucture, storage of batteries while they charge, etc. that's not the case here, Europe oranywhere else.
Nio has installed 60 swap stations in Europe. Don't just make stuff up.
Here in Oz, we don't even have enough EV charging stations.
So, battery swapping here, Nation wide, is just a distant dream.
Yet another irrelevant to us, China based post, from the legend, Riz.
Nio boss said the CATL batteries are air cooled intended for Didi drivers and Firefly uses water cooled batteries. I guess this is the reason the CATL swaps are faster.
In theory, battery swapping technology could be the catalyst for more businesses to buy EVs, so that people on work time don't lose much downtime to re-energise their cars.
...and the cost of swapping a battery is...???