CATL has revealed its latest commercial vehicle battery, the Tectrans II light commercial superfast pack, which it claims stands as the first in the logistics sector to reach an 8C peak charging rate. The battery is capable of reaching an 80% state of charge in six minutes 48 seconds and a full charge in eight minutes 56 seconds—times CATL says roughly match refuelling an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.

The company designed the battery to address what it identifies as the main pain points for electric light commercial vehicles (LCVs): slow charging, short battery life, winter performance loss, and mismatched charging infrastructure. The first of these is addressed, in part, by the sheer speed by which the battery replenishes its charge. This will obviously need to be accompanied by equally fast chargers. 

CATL attributes the fast-charging performance to a cell internal resistance that sits at half the industry average, reducing heat build-up during rapid charging, alongside atomic-level restructuring of graphite particles to slow lithium loss and battery degradation. In temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, the battery needs only an additional two and a half minutes to charge, which the company says preserves fast turnaround times in cold climates.

On the second pain point, longevity, CATL is offering a warranty of either ten years or one million kilometres. The company claims this matches the lifespan of the battery to the vehicle itself. It should be noted that the average age of a light commercial vehicle in the EU is 12.5 years, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). CATL believes the warranty guarantee should also support stronger resale values. 

Alongside the battery, CATL has launched Choco swap stations compatible with both passenger and commercial vehicles, aimed at urban distribution, intercity transport, cold chain and last-mile delivery. Clearly, the battery maker is looking to convince fleet operators that there are multiple viable solutions to the problems of charge anxiety and downtime. 

As it stands, CATL is planning to roll out 4,000 of these stations across nearly 190 Chinese cities in 2026, controlling the refuelling infrastructure rather than leaving deployment to third parties. A recently-announced joint venture with Octopus Energy aims to bring the same technology to Europe, starting with the UK later this year.

The launch extends a Tectrans line CATL first introduced in July 2024 with 4C superfast-charging and long-range logistics batteries, later expanded into heavy commercial and construction machinery applications. Its January 2026 Tectrans II low-temperature edition was already the industry’s first mass-produced sodium-ion battery for light commercial vehicles, retaining 90% of capacity at minus 40 degrees Celsius.

By closing the refuelling time gap with ICE vehicles and pairing that with a lifespan-matched warranty, CATL is addressing the two objections that have most held back fleet operators from switching to electric LCVs: charging downtime and residual value uncertainty. Building out its own charging and swap network alongside the battery also gives CATL direct control over the infrastructure layer of adoption, not just the cell technology underpinning it.