Seres took a 33.3 percent equal stake in Ionchi on April 17, joining BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the China premium charging joint venture that the two German brands set up in 2024. The new three-way split gives all three parents identical voting rights and access to what is now the only premium charging network in China backed by direct OEM capital rather than third-party operators.
Ionchi currently operates 430 supercharger stations with 2,408 charging points spread across 37 Chinese cities, according to the December 2025 network status. The target announced at launch was 1,000 stations and roughly 7,000 high-power points by the end of 2026. The current run rate makes that stretch aggressive. Seres joining as a funding partner changes the math.
Why Seres, Why Now
Seres is the Chinese partner in the Huawei-backed Aito brand, and the reason its arrival at Ionchi matters is not the Seres nameplate itself. It is the Aito customer base. The new Aito M6 launches April 22 starting at 269,800 yuan, with an industry-leading 896-channel LiDAR system and the full Huawei ADS 4.0 driver-assistance stack. Aito sales doubled in 2025, and the brand has been calling out network coverage as a retention gap for buyers who are trading up from Teslas or domestic LFP-battery compacts.
A 33.3 percent stake gets Aito customers the same reservation priority and peak-power allocation that BMW and Mercedes customers already enjoy on the Ionchi network. That is a real retail-level benefit, not a marketing line. On a 2026 Chinese supercharger at 400 kW shared peak, priority allocation during weekend traffic can be the difference between a 15-minute stop and a 40-minute one.
Three OEMs, One Network, One Set of Plugs
Ionchi's original pitch was European-style premium charging for a Chinese market that had defaulted to Tesla Supercharger-adjacent fragmentation. The network uses a closed access model: reservations, pre-allocated power slots, and loyalty benefits for cars from member brands. Non-member-brand cars can charge on a walk-up basis, but without priority.
The three-way structure with Seres complicates this slightly. BMW sells internal-combustion and EV product. Mercedes sells the same. Seres through Aito sells only NEVs, most of them EREVs rather than pure battery electric. The Ionchi stations were built for 400-kilowatt-class BEVs, which means Aito's EREV customers will use the network less frequently than pure EV drivers from the German members. That imbalance is workable. It just changes the business case on who pays for what.
What This Means for the Chinese Charging Fight
BYD finished Q1 2026 with more than 5,000 of its own megawatt-class Flash Charging stations live and a public target of 20,000 by year-end. Tesla's Supercharger network in China crossed 2,400 stations in March. State Grid operates thousands more DC fast chargers at lower peak power. Ionchi's value proposition is not raw station count. It is the combination of premium locations in central urban commercial districts and the reservation system, which BYD and State Grid do not offer.
The expanded JV sends a clearer message than the 2024 version: the German premium brands, faced with eroding market share in China, are doubling down on network quality rather than trying to match BYD on price. Whether that holds as an argument when BMW's own EV lineup in China is under pressure is a separate question. The next read is the Ionchi station count for June 2026. If it clears 600, the capital injection is working. If it stays around 450, Seres is a minority partner in a stalling venture.
