In early 2026, Byd Company Limited launched an aggressive offensive with its "second-generation Blade Battery and ultra-fast charging technology," causing a stir across the industry. This naturally raises the question: why hasn't Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.,Ltd. (CATL), the long-standing global leader in power batteries, developed such a cutting-edge product? Beyond the ultra-fast charging battery, BYD also unveiled its "Ultra-Fast Charging China" strategy, aiming to establish 20,000 ultra-fast charging stations by the end of 2026. What about CATL? On March 19th, 30 CATL "Chocolate" battery swap stations were collectively opened in Hangzhou, with 1,500 battery-swappable ride-hailing vehicles delivered for operation. On one side, charging speeds are approaching the "refueling experience," while on the other, battery swap networks are being densely deployed in key cities. This represents not just parallel narratives of two energy replenishment routes, but strategic choices made by two leading trillion-yuan market cap companies based on their respective "DNA." Let's analyze why Byd Company Limited was the first to mass-produce 1500kW ultra-fast charging, and not CATL.
First, corporate positioning dictates business boundaries. The divergence in energy replenishment strategies between CATL and BYD stems from fundamental differences in their core identities, which lead to different business boundaries and directly determine their respective technological development directions. CATL is a pure third-party independent power battery supplier. Its core mission is to provide standardized, highly compatible battery products for the entire industry, avoiding competition with automakers and relying on supply scale to maintain its market position. In contrast, BYD is a vertically integrated vehicle manufacturer with a closed-loop industrial chain. Its batteries, electric drives, and energy replenishment technologies all serve its own vehicle business, building differentiated competitiveness through vertical integration. Essentially, their survival foundations are vastly different. While BYD's batteries are now also supplied externally, data from Gaogong Industry Research shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, BYD's external supply ratio was 20.85%, indicating that self-supply remains the core focus.
CATL's core competitiveness as a third-party supplier lies in its scale and adaptability to customers, which is also the primary constraint preventing it from developing proprietary ultra-fast charging systems. Its partner clients include mainstream domestic and international automakers like Tesla, NIO, AITO, BMW, and Volkswagen. The high-voltage platforms, thermal management systems, and energy replenishment standards vary significantly across their vehicle models. Most mainstream models still primarily use 400V-800V platforms, with only a few high-end models adopting 800V high-voltage systems. No automaker can fully deploy exclusive 1000V+ high-voltage platforms across its lineup like BYD can. It's crucial to understand that ultra-fast charging is not merely a single battery technology; it requires full-chain coordination involving the vehicle, charging pile, battery, and power grid. An independent supplier cannot interfere with how automakers define their products. Therefore, CATL has only launched its Shenxing Superfast Charging battery, which is open to the entire industry and focuses on universal fast charging, deliberately avoiding involvement in proprietary, closed-loop ultra-fast charging ecosystems. In short, CATL is not an automaker and cannot overstep its role.
Conversely, BYD can leverage ultra-fast charging to enhance its competitiveness. BYD does not need to worry about third-party compatibility. Its full in-house R&D and closed-loop model allow for the seamless implementation of ultra-fast charging. BYD's goal is to achieve industry leadership with unique capabilities. From the Blade Battery and 1000V high-voltage platform to silicon carbide electric drives, 1500kW ultra-fast charging piles, and integrated storage and charging stations, everything is independently developed and deployed, forming a completely closed energy replenishment system. This enables rapid technological mass production and allows the deployment of ultra-fast charging technology even in mainstream volume models, directly widening the gap with competitors and boosting vehicle premium and sales. Simply put, BYD develops ultra-fast charging to strengthen its vehicle competitiveness; CATL avoids proprietary ultra-fast charging to protect its global supply base and maintain its neutral supplier status, respecting automakers' vehicle definitions. Their choices are perfectly aligned with their core business logic. Of course, the ultra-fast charging battery also offers exceptionally outstanding performance and selling points compared to competitors. If BYD supplies the ultra-fast charging battery while also providing the energy replenishment service via its charging stations, it presents a highly attractive integrated solution for other automakers—akin to paying for a battery but receiving a service comparable to NIO's battery swap. This could potentially significantly boost the growth of BYD's external battery supply market.
Second, profit logic determines investment direction. Furthermore, the core profitability and growth requirements of the two companies further dictate their resource allocation in the energy replenishment sector. Batteries are the absolute core of CATL's profits. CATL's 2025 annual report indicates that power battery revenue accounted for 74.7% of its total, representing its primary income source, constituting over seventy percent. However, another set of data is less impressive: CATL's domestic power battery market share dropped to 43.42% in 2025, down from 52.1% in 2021, showing a yearly decline. CATL urgently needs to find new growth drivers. The battery swap business aligns with its profit upgrade needs and is a carefully cultivated new growth curve. By creating a diversified profit model involving "manufacturing + operation + service," it aims to reduce the impact of manufacturing cycle fluctuations. Battery leasing generates continuous cash flow, swap services earn stable fees, and retired batteries are repurposed for energy storage, while raw material recycling reduces production costs. In contrast, ultra-fast charging can only increase the added value of individual battery units but cannot generate long-term, recurring revenue. Its contribution to improving CATL's profit structure is limited, making it far less strategically valuable than battery swapping. Additionally, CATL's involvement in battery swapping can synergize with its energy storage business, forming an energy ecosystem of "power battery + energy storage + battery swap" for efficient energy allocation. Ultra-fast charging, by comparison, is confined to the single scenario of vehicle energy replenishment and lacks ecosystem extensibility. It is important to clarify that CATL is not lacking in fast-charging technology. The second-generation Shenxing Superfast Charging battery released in 2024 features a 12C charging rate with a peak power of 1.3 megawatts. Technologically, CATL could likely develop an ultra-fast charging battery, but it does not align with its strategy.
The core business of BYD (whose subsidiaries like FinDreams Battery, FinDreams Power, and FinDreams Technology are all 100% wholly-owned) is vehicle sales. In 2025, its total new energy vehicle sales reached 4.6024 million units, capturing over 35% of the domestic new energy vehicle market. Although BYD has not yet released its full 2025 financial report, data from the first half shows that revenue from automobiles and related products accounted for a significant 81.48% of total revenue. It can be said that BYD's position in the new energy vehicle sector is analogous to CATL's position in the power battery market. All supporting businesses, including batteries, ultra-fast charging, and electric drives, are essentially aimed at enhancing the appeal of BYD's vehicles, consolidating its sales advantage, and driving profit growth for the整车 business. The value of ultra-fast charging lies not in direct profitability but in its role as a core tool for strengthening user loyalty and differentiating from competitors. For BYD, ultra-fast charging is a value-added supplement to its vehicle business, not an independent profit center. This fundamentally differs from CATL's positioning of battery swapping as a new growth curve.
Third, differentiated strategies avoid competition. Interestingly, the fundamental differences in their business natures allow these two giants to compete differently in the energy replenishment field, effectively avoiding direct confrontation. From a business attribute perspective, the battery swap track perfectly aligns with CATL's neutral positioning as a third-party supplier. It does not involve vehicle manufacturing, thus not only avoiding competition with its automotive clients but also enabling collaboration with multiple automakers to promote battery-as-a-service models, precisely targeting operational vehicle markets like ride-hailing, taxis, and heavy-duty trucks. The core needs in these scenarios are efficient energy replenishment, reduced vehicle operating costs, and guaranteed range stability. The battery swap model, enabling immediate battery replacement, perfectly matches the 24/7 operational demands of commercial vehicles. While ultra-fast charging offers high speed, it faces inherent limitations in large-scale replenishment scenarios for operational vehicles due to factors like charging station deployment, vehicle high-voltage platform compatibility, and grid load constraints. This is precisely where the battery swap track holds its core advantage.
BYD's ultra-fast charging track primarily covers consumer scenarios like its own brand passenger vehicles and personal mobility. Users in these segments prioritize "convenience and contextual suitability." Ultra-fast charging technology reduces charging time to within ten minutes, nearing the traditional refueling experience, effectively alleviating "range anxiety" for private car owners. Leveraging its vertical integration advantage, BYD deeply integrates ultra-fast charging technology with its own models, enhancing their market competitiveness and building a unique technical barrier in the C-end energy replenishment scene. Certainly, BYD will likely offer this product to other automakers as well, given that many are also exploring ways to彻底 address consumer concerns about range and recharging. Precisely because of this, the customer bases served by CATL and BYD in the energy replenishment field are distinctly separate, with no direct market competition between them. Strategically, CATL has chosen to build operational advantages around the entire battery lifecycle in the battery swap domain, while BYD has carved its own distinctive path in the ultra-fast charging arena. Through the implementation and普及 of ultra-fast charging technology, BYD will further consolidate its leading position in the new energy vehicle market, making ultra-fast charging a key driver for its continued market share growth.
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