CATL & Quibo Mobile Power Plant Ultra 2.0

A 2 MWh battery in a 20-foot box: what the IAA 2026 placard tells us

The Mobile Power Plant Ultra 2.0 puts up to 2,036 kWh of CATL battery packs, a converter, EV charging outlets and a solar inverter into a standard 20-foot container. Quibo pitches it as a way around fixed charging infrastructure, for industrial parks, commercial districts, charging stations and car parks.

The display was a scale model of a truck carrying the container, with a folding solar array on the roof, under a banner reading “PV + BESS + EV”. Beside it sat a printed placard listing three variants. The truck is a display piece; the placard describes the product itself as a container. Both were on show at IAA Transportation 2026 in Hannover, which ran from 15 to 20 September.

The placard is short on engineering detail. This post reads it against Quibo’s published data for the earlier SNES1000-2036AL-EN unit and two comparable containerised systems, works out what the numbers allow, and lists what is still unanswered. Where the arithmetic goes beyond what was printed, it is marked as inference.

This post has been built based on the support of and sponsorship from: illumion, Custom Power, Quarto Technical Services, Eatron Technologies and About:Energy

Who Quibo is

Quibo Energy is the new name for SUNNIC, a charging and storage company that CATL and Xiaomi both invested in [2][3]. SUNNIC’s earlier projects include CNPC and CATL microgrid super-charging stations in Beijing and Tianjin in 2023 [8], and a solar, storage and charging station at Kapuvár in Hungary with a 500 kW maximum charging output [9]. Its homepage says its first mobile power plant has been delivered and commissioned in Europe [7]. The page gives no date, customer or specification.

The commercial backdrop is the memorandum of understanding CATL and DHL Group signed in Hannover on 14 September 2026, covering green freight corridors, charging infrastructure and battery-swapping pilots [1][3]. Coverage names Quibo as a potential participant, and says Quibo and FleetBoost, which had already built the FleetBooster 20 and 40 around CATL cells, are working on scalable mobile energy and charging systems [1][3]. Car News China lists a “2 mWh mobile energy storage ultra-fast charging system” and a megawatt mobile power station among Quibo’s products, without specifications [2].

None of the coverage I could open mentions the Ultra 2.0 by name, though QUIBO’s own site does, in a 16 September 2026 post naming the product “Mobile Power Plant Ultra” (without the “2.0”) and confirming the 14 September 2026 IAA launch with CATL [15]. So the placard is still the primary source for the specifications in this post, with the reader-shared datasheet below as a second source.

What the placard says

The placard lists three variants sharing one container. Two use the same 2,036 kWh battery at different converter ratings; the third has a smaller battery.

The rest of the placard applies to the whole family:

The model codes have changed style from the earlier SNES1000-2036AL-EN to SNMGS…AL06-EN. The placard does not say what the new letters or the “06” mean.

A fuller datasheet, from the show floor

After this post went up, a reader sent a photo of a printed product datasheet for the same three variants, headed “Product Datasheet 2026 V1.0” and credited to Shanghai QUIBO Energy Co., Ltd. Its model codes and headline power and energy figures match the placard exactly, and QUIBO’s own site independently confirms a product called Mobile Power Plant Ultra launched with CATL at IAA Transportation on 14 September 2026 [14][15] — though I could not find this specific datasheet hosted there to check the line items below against a second source, so treat the figures in this table as reader-supplied and not independently verified.

This is a step up from the placard: it gives a cell chemistry, a cooling split between battery and power conversion system, a cycle-life test condition, and per-variant mass. It also settles two things this post treated as inference or unknown — see the notes below.

Testing and certification, as printed

The datasheet lists UN38.3, UL1973, IEC62619, UL9540A, IEC62477, IEC61000, EN50549-1, EN50549-2, G99 and AS/NZS 4777. In plain terms, that is: transport testing for lithium batteries (UN38.3); stationary battery safety (UL1973); safety of secondary lithium cells for industrial use (IEC62619); a fire propagation test for battery energy storage systems (UL9540A); safety of power electronic converters (IEC62477); electromagnetic compatibility (IEC61000); and three grid-connection codes for generating equipment — EN50549-1 and -2 for the EU, G99 for Great Britain, and AS/NZS 4777 for Australia and New Zealand.

None of that explains “PPB” or “Nuclear-Grade Safety” from the placard. UL9540A is the closest thing to a propagation-safety test on the list, but the placard’s own wording is still unglossed.

Reading between the numbers

One battery, two duty cycles. The 1,000 kW and 750 kW variants both sit at about 0.49 kW per kWh, in line with the “0.5P” rating on the earlier unit [5]. The 500 kW variant is a 0.25 configuration, which is a four-hour system. The 1,527 kWh figure is exactly three quarters of 2,036 kWh. Together these suggest a battery made of identical blocks, with the smaller variant fitted with three quarters of them.

Inference: a 260-series string. Quibo’s page for the earlier unit gives CATL LFP 306 Ah cells and a 650 to 950 VDC bus [5]. If the cells are LFP with a 3.2 V nominal voltage and a 2.5 to 3.65 V working range (typical values; Quibo does not state them), 260 in series spans 650 to 949 V, which matches the bus window. Each string then stores:

Eight strings give 2,036.7 kWh and six give 1,527.6 kWh. Both agree with the placard if the figures were truncated to whole kWh. This is my inference only. The placard says just “CATL Battery Packs”, and the 306 Ah cell is carried over from the earlier unit. A datasheet shared by a reader after publication puts a number on this directly: it gives a rated DC voltage of 832 V, which is exactly 260 × 3.2 V, and confirms the chemistry as LFP [14] — see the fuller datasheet below.

Energy per unit volume. The 6,058 × 2,438 × 2,591 mm envelope is about 38.3 m³ with a 14.8 m² footprint, so 2,036 kWh works out at roughly 53 kWh per m³ of gross container volume. CATL’s TENER storage container holds 6.25 MWh in a 20-foot box [12], about three times as much. That is not a like-for-like comparison, since TENER is storage only, but it shows what the converter, chargers, solar inverter and cooling cost in space. The earlier unit is listed at up to 25 t [5]. The Ultra 2.0 placard gives no mass, but the reader-shared datasheet does: about 24 t for the two 2,036 kWh variants and about 20 t for the 1,527 kWh variant [14]. That puts the two larger variants at roughly 85 Wh/kg and the smaller one at roughly 76 Wh/kg, on gross container mass rather than cell mass alone.

Six vehicles at once. The earlier unit has one 480 kW DC output with two 400 A plugs, plus four 22 kW AC sockets [5]. Six vehicles could mean two DC and four AC, but that is a guess, and the placard gives no per-port power. A 1 MW converter caps the total delivered to all vehicles at 1 MW. Nothing on the placard suggests a single-vehicle megawatt outlet. FleetBoost describes its FleetBooster 40 as prepared for MCS [11].

Cycle life. “≥10,000 cycles, up to 12,000” comes with no depth of discharge, rate, temperature or end-of-life threshold. One full cycle a day for 10,000 cycles is over 27 years, and two a day is still about 13.7 years, so calendar ageing and the warranty term will matter more than the headline. SUNNIC quoted 15,000 cycles for a different system in the CNPC microgrid project [8], another sign that the figure only means something with its test conditions attached.

What’s missing, and why it matters

• Grid import rating. The placard gives a 400 VAC output but no import limit or minimum grid connection. That number decides whether “no grid upgrade” is true in practice. FleetBoost states a flexible connection of 80 to 400 kW (FleetBooster 20) or 80 to 800 kW (FleetBooster 40), or off-grid [10][11].
• Charger power and connectors. Six simultaneous vehicles are claimed, but there are no per-port kW figures, no connector standards and no statement on how power is shared between ports.
• Solar size. The placard says “solar inversion” and the model carries a folding array, but no kWp is given. My estimate: a 20-foot roof is about 14.8 m², roughly 3 kWp with current panels, perhaps double with a fold-out wing. At about 2.7 kWh per kWp per day (a central-European annual average, assumed), 6 kWp gives around 15 to 20 kWh a day, under 1% of 2,036 kWh. The PV looks like a top-up and an off-grid enabler, not a main energy source.
• What “PPB” and “Nuclear-Grade Safety” mean. Neither phrase is glossed anywhere I found, including on the fuller datasheet below, which lists UL9540A, IEC62619 and seven other standards by number but does not say which one “PPB” refers to. UL9540A (propagation testing) is the closest fit. Still open: whether it applies at cell, module or container level, and what detection, venting and suppression are fitted. See the BESS Testing page for how those tests differ.
• Cell and chemistry. The placard’s “CATL Battery Packs” does not name a chemistry, but a reader-shared datasheet does: LFP, matching the earlier unit’s 306 Ah LFP cells [5][14].
• Thermal system. The earlier unit uses liquid cooling for both battery and charger [5]. A reader-shared datasheet for the Ultra 2.0 gives a different split: the battery is liquid-cooled but the power conversion system is air-cooled, alongside IP67 packs, an IP54 container and a −20 to 50 °C range [14] — so this looks like a genuine change from the earlier unit, not just an omission on the placard.
• Efficiency, standby load, price and warranty. None appear on the placard.

How it compares

The closest published comparators are the earlier Quibo unit and FleetBoost’s FleetBooster 20 and 40, both built around CATL LFP cells [10][11].

The last row uses nominal ISO container dimensions and ignores what else each box contains, so treat it as a rough guide. It still suggests the Quibo unit stores about twice as much energy per unit of container volume as the FleetBooster units, though I cannot tell how much of each box is battery and how much is other equipment. FleetBoost’s published grid-connection range is a useful template for what Quibo should be asked to state.

Volvo Penta also showed a mobile battery storage system at IAA Transportation 2026, reported as the Hivolt 380X. The coverage I could open gave no capacity, power or chemistry figures [13], so it cannot be benchmarked yet.

Where it fits in CATL’s freight push

The Ultra 2.0 sits alongside several other CATL freight announcements from the same week. The DHL memorandum covers corridors, charging infrastructure and swapping pilots [1][3]. Swaptopus, CATL’s joint venture with Octopus Energy, plans UK demonstration stations in 2027 and more than 30 stations by 2035 [1], and the concept was first shown in June 2026 [4]. On the vehicle side, CATL’s TECTRANS II heavy-duty platform claims megawatt-class charging, covered in our CATL TECTRANS II post.

None of the sources I opened says the Ultra 2.0 will supply the DHL corridors, Swaptopus stations or TECTRANS II trucks. The link is implied by who is involved, not announced. A 1 MW converter shared across up to six vehicles, with no megawatt-class outlet confirmed, would also sit awkwardly beside a platform advertised for megawatt-level charging. My reading is that the near-term fit is depot and site charging for mixed fleets rather than corridor megacharging.

Takeaways for pack and system designers

If the 260-series inference holds, capacity scales in steps of about 255 kWh on a fixed bus window and one converter design. It is the same logic as building a pack family from a standard module, applied at container level, and it explains how one box can be offered at 1,527 and 2,036 kWh.

At about 0.5 kW per kWh the LFP cells are working gently. The harder thermal problem is likely the converter and chargers in a sealed 20-foot box, which is where the placard is silent. The 0.25 variant suggests Quibo expects some buyers to want long-duration energy rather than peak power.

The safety wording needs test evidence behind it before it can be compared with anything else. A charged container moved by road also has its own transport classification, which for lithium batteries installed in a cargo transport unit is UN 3536 under ADR, so “mobile” brings regulatory work that a fixed installation avoids. A 2 MWh unit that can move is a different design problem from one that cannot.

See also: CATL TECTRANS II, BESS Testing, Fast Charging, Swappable Battery Packs

References

1. CnEVPost, “CATL, DHL sign new pact to advance road freight electrification in Europe”, 18 September 2026.
2. Car News China, “CATL and DHL collaborate on scalable charging and battery-swapping solutions for European logistics”, 18 September 2026.
3. Battery-Tech Network, “CATL, DHL Expand European Freight Electrification Push”.
4. Electrek, “Swaptopus inches towards reality as CATL reveals new semi truck battery”, 19 September 2026.
5. SUNNIC, Mobile Power Plant product page (SNES1000-2036AL-EN).
6. SUNNIC, Mobile Storage-EV Charging Container product page (same model code and specification).
7. SUNNIC, company homepage.
8. SUNNIC, “Microgrid Supercharging: The Next Generation of Energy and EV Charging Network Defined by SUNNIC and CNPC”.
9. SUNNIC, “SUNNIC’s First European Smart PV, Energy Storage and EV Charging Station Officially Goes Live”, 16 October 2023.
10. FleetBoost, Fleetbooster 20.
11. FleetBoost, Fleetbooster 40.
12. CATL, “CATL Unveils TENER, the World’s First Five-Year Zero Degradation Energy Storage System with 6.25MWh Capacity”, 9 April 2024.
13. Metsatrans, “Volvo Penta showcases mobile battery storage for truck charging at IAA 2026”.
14. Product datasheet for the Mobile Power Plant Ultra 2.0, “Product Datasheet 2026 V1.0,” credited to Shanghai QUIBO Energy Co., Ltd. Photographed copy shared by a reader; not independently verified against a source I could open.
15. QUIBO Energy, “QUIBO and CATL Present Mobile Power Plant Ultra at IAA”, 16 September 2026.