Yinwang, the Huawei-backed intelligent automotive unit behind the Qiankun smart driving brand, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with battery giant CATL and its battery-swap arm Times E-Service in Ningde, Fujian province.
Under the agreement, the three parties will connect the vehicle side, swap stations and the cloud at the infrastructure level, linking Qiankun's intelligent driving capability with CATL's Chocolate battery-swap network to deliver seamless energy replenishment for the autonomous driving era.
The plan is for vehicles to decide when and where to recharge based on battery status and route planning, then navigate themselves to a swap station, complete station finding, entry and alignment automatically, finish a battery swap in 99 seconds and drive off on their own.
Qiankun's smart driving system is already connected to an ecosystem of more than one million charging piles, with smart charging covering over 2 million charging stations and convenient payment available at more than 300,000 parking lots. Adding swapping extends the energy ecosystem from charging into battery exchange.
Analysts say the move is particularly meaningful for high-intensity fleet vehicles such as taxis and ride-hailing cars, where downtime for charging directly hits operator revenue, and it signals that swapping standards and intelligent driving capabilities are beginning to be bundled in China's NEV infrastructure race.
Source: Barron's CN daily digest citing company announcements, October 19-20, 2026.
