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Any battery experts have opinions on this chemistry? My understanding is that CATL is a fairly established operation and far along in development -- what are th

Any battery experts have opinions on this chemistry? My understanding is that CATL is a fairly established operation and far along in development -- what are the remaining risks in using this chemistry?

tuatoru 4y ago
Little is known about CATL's secret sauce. But several other groups have been working on other Na-ion chemistries, mostly for stationary storage which has bigger market potential if the price is right. Faradion is working on Na-ion for India's vehicle market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Commerciali...
tuatoru 4y ago
IANAE, but from my very brief topic search last month (~50 hours) the risks are competitive, that some other chemistry turns out to be "better" for a major application or that some other company does it better than you. There is always the possibility that someone figures out how to make cheap, safe, reliable, durable, high-current, temperature-tolerant and abuse-tolerant X-air (aluminum-air, lithium-air, or some other common metal or anion -air) batteries. The holy grail of max energy density, volumetric and gravimetric. There are many niches in storage, though, especially in stationary uses. Lifetime cost (10 to 50 years) will dominate for some, sticker (label) price for others.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
CATL as the world's largest manufacturer of batteries is covering the entire battery market and different parts of the market have different requirements. It's less about risk and more about having products with different cost and features. They are diversifying their products and opening up new segments of the market. Sodium ion batteries are interesting because they don't depend on a lot of expensive materials like Lithium and (presumably) don't require a lot of dirty and energy intensive processing. In terms of energy density they are comparable to some of the outdated lithium batteries from a few years ago (i.e. not that impressive but still capable). But in terms of cost, it probably is a massive improvement. And this looks like it should do well in cheap cars as a good enough & cheap enough battery. And of course there is a lot of demand for batteries now beyond cars or transport where energy density simply is not that relevant.

tuatoru 4y ago

Little is known about CATL's secret sauce. But several other groups have been working on other Na-ion chemistries, mostly for stationary storage which has bigger market potential if the price is right. Faradion is working on Na-ion for India's vehicle market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Commerciali...

tuatoru 4y ago

IANAE, but from my very brief topic search last month (~50 hours) the risks are competitive, that some other chemistry turns out to be "better" for a major application or that some other company does it better than you. There is always the possibility that someone figures out how to make cheap, safe, reliable, durable, high-current, temperature-tolerant and abuse-tolerant X-air (aluminum-air, lithium-air, or some other common metal or anion -air) batteries. The holy grail of max energy density, volumetric and gravimetric. There are many niches in storage, though, especially in stationary uses. Lifetime cost (10 to 50 years) will dominate for some, sticker (label) price for others.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

CATL as the world's largest manufacturer of batteries is covering the entire battery market and different parts of the market have different requirements. It's less about risk and more about having products with different cost and features. They are diversifying their products and opening up new segments of the market. Sodium ion batteries are interesting because they don't depend on a lot of expensive materials like Lithium and (presumably) don't require a lot of dirty and energy intensive processing. In terms of energy density they are comparable to some of the outdated lithium batteries from a few years ago (i.e. not that impressive but still capable). But in terms of cost, it probably is a massive improvement. And this looks like it should do well in cheap cars as a good enough & cheap enough battery. And of course there is a lot of demand for batteries now beyond cars or transport where energy density simply is not that relevant.