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Sodium-ion batteries have started to appear in cars and home storage
- brybell 1y agoVery interesting. I've been thinking for the past few years that new battery technology is really what will be the catalyst for the next generation of technology across all industries. I'm curious about their use in smaller consumer electronics, or if lithium will still be the standard for many more years to come.
- dwd 1y agoIdeally they will be used in personal electronics as sodium chloride solid state (SCSS) batteries are far safer and not going to explode or cause a run-away fire. They also don't need some "critical" minerals such as graphite, cobalt and nickel.
- fart-fart-FART 1y agographite is rather abundant and easily synthesized, is it not?
- stephenitis 1y agoHe must mean lithium?
- dwd 1y agoI guess it depends on your perspective. If you're Chinese, graphite is abundant and available as 98% of processing currently occurs in China. Lithium, not so much which is why it is Chinese firms leading development of sodium ion battery technology. As with the rare earth minerals, the supply of graphite, cobalt and nickel is vulnerable hence the designation as critical minerals by Western Governments.
- hoistbypetard 1y agoI hope it's on the way, but I don't think the Pioneer Na is yet a sign of this revolution. This detailed review didn't leave me in a hurry to go get one, anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoZ_g_MShTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoZ_g_MShTw
- cyberax 1y agoThe idea is not that Na-Ion batteries are better than LFPs, they are not. The main goal is to make them dirt cheap. It seems that $15 per kWh of storage should be achievable with them. At this price, it's trivial to install enough grid-scale storage to completely move off fossil fuels in more southern areas.
- marsven_422 1y ago[dead]
- measurablefunc 1y ago[flagged]
- cyberax 1y ago> California batteries are constantly going up in flames. What is the fraction of California batteries that went up in flames during the last year?
- measurablefunc 1y ago[flagged]
- cyberax 1y agoYeah, yeah. Care to provide a list of burned batteries?
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- Hobadee 1y ago[flagged]
- slackerIII 1y agoJust curious, what's your background in batteries? From my understanding, sodium based batteries are safer than lithium, but I would defer to anyone with real expertise in the subject.
- jopsen 1y agoThere are plenty of laptops and phones in airplanes today. What makes you think the risk will increase in the future?
- amluto 1y agoAs you go down the table, the alkali metals (in metallic form) get far nastier.
- boxed 1y ago> Look, I'm all for better battery technology Go on. > but we are also building a ton of mini bombs that we all hold in our pockets Yea. That's the definition of "battery". Clearly you are against batteries.
- gitaarik 1y agoAre sodium batteries more dangerous?
- haarts 1y agoI don't believe they are. Sodium is less reactive than lithium.
- terminalshort 1y agoWait till you find out what internal combustion engines run on...
- themafia 1y ago
- AnonC 1y agoI skimmed through the article. It talks a lot about sodium ion batteries and how major vehicle and transportation companies are getting into making and using these batteries. It also talks about the cost aspect, with sodium ion being cheaper than lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. However, there is no mention of this technology in consumer devices and gadgets like laptops, smartphones and tablets. I get that the site is about clean technology as a replacement for the currently more polluting technology. But I’m interested to see when these sodium ion batteries will appear in phones and laptops and what difference they may make to the cost, price, weight, performance, safety, longevity, etc.
- chris_va 1y agoWell, because they probably never will. Phones and laptops are weight/volume sensitive, and sodium ions are a lot larger than lithium ions, thus the battery energy density is lower.
- someonenice 1y agoIncreased usage of Sodium batteries for static applications (home storage) could reduce demand for Li based batteries. This could reduce the cost of Laptop batteries.
- gpm 1y agoMore likely to do the opposite as economies of scale decrease for lithium - though rapidly advancing battery technology and scale in general means I'd be shocked if it ever managed to do the opposite enough to increase prices and not just slow the decline in prices.
- jostmey 1y agoPhone and laptop batteries probably make up a tiny fraction of the battery market. My EV battery is almost 5000 times the size of my iphone. Sodium batteries, if the technology works, would replace EV batteries and provide support to the electrical grid, and would be purchased at thousands of times the volume of iphone ad laptop batteries
- labrador 1y agoIt seems clear that na-ion batteries will replace large scale grid storage especially in cold climates. This isn't another hyped up battery.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agoI don't think cold climates will be that different here. grid scale storage doesn't care about outside temp because heating/cooling a warehouse is pretty cheap
- hyperadvanced 1y agoA lot of BESS enclosures (sub grid scale, and grid scale) are much more primitive than a warehouse. If you don’t need to pay for HVAC, it’s free money for the operator.
- lambdaone 1y agoYou can also put internal heaters within the battery compartment itself, as with current EV batteries, and have the batteries manage their own temperature automatically.
- bmicraft 1y agoResistive heating is pretty wasteful, and heat pumps are expensive. If it's not necessary then leaving it out will be much more efficient.
- hyperadvanced 1y agoThat’s my core comment here. Batteries already have to fight a lot of entropy, don’t make it harder than you need to
- mmooss 1y agoHeating and cooling is pretty energy-intensive, which comes right out of the marginal profit of owning batteries. They might as well hook up the heating/cooling system to the batteries.
- tedk-42 1y agoWhere are all the commenters about how China can't innovate and they can only steal technology now... Reverse that, why don't other countries / companies try and steal their talent and IP? Is everyone resigned to think that China are undefeatable on the technology/manufacturing of these batteries?
- shard972 1y ago[dead]
- jabl 1y agoChina has by this point large advantages in industrial ecosystems and modest cost labor, and that the state is willing to make large long-term bets on technologies it sees as important in the future. It's not insurmountable for 'the West' to claw back some of that manufacturing, including high-tech items like batteries. It will take a large, long-time and very expensive effort, however. But talk is cheap, and largely 'the West' has drunken the neoliberalism kool-aid and is staring at quarterly shareholder value so little gets done. Heck, some Western government are even in bed with the fossil fuel industry, desperately trying to hold back progress in order to claw a bit more profit out of the industry before the full force of the electric revolution hits.
- formerly_proven 1y ago> But talk is cheap, and largely 'the West' has drunken the neoliberalism kool-aid and is staring at quarterly shareholder value so little gets done. The west is mostly drunk on populism, nativism and boomer welfare. If it were the neoliberal hellscape you imagine, it'd at least be competitive.
- energy123 1y agoAnd workers rights, minimum wage and immigration restrictions. This trifecta of anti-neoliberal policies destroyed manufacturing competitiveness. But the term "neoliberal" has become a slur which is defined as "subset of the status quo that I don't like", and it will endlessly shapeshift so that it can be blamed for whatever is being discussed.
- tonyhart7 1y agoHope the economic of scale picked up and we would get 10% price of vehicle as battery cost
- LikeBeans 1y agoFor my EV, which I charge about once a week on average, with 4,000 cycles that means about 77 years!! That's a huge deal. CATL quoted 10k cycle battery too. Wow. Very cool. Yeah energy density and operating profile and all that. But color me impressed.
- tirant 1y agoIt’s not only about longevity in time but also in terms of miles. For heavy users and given a standard range of 250+ miles, we are talking about a longevity of 1 000 000 miles. I never had a car with more than 200.000km (120 000 miles).
- esseph 1y agoI've never had a car with less than 120,000 miles.
- hvb2 1y agoIn the US you see a lot of cars with many miles on them because distances are bigger there, especially on the west coast. Also, there's just smog you need to pass which is significantly less than in many other developed countries. Some have yearly required checks that would check all safety features like brakes, tires etcetera. That's where a lot of cars fail that would just keep driving in the US
- pengaru 1y agooutside the rust belt new-ish cars can easily last hundreds of thousands of miles my 95 mx-5 has nearly 360,000 mi. on it
- esseph 1y agoA lot of states have yearly inspections. Outside of the rust belt, cars last quite awhile as long as you change oil and the occasional rubbery bit. I'm actually scrapping a 99 Jeep TJ right now because the OEM powertrain is just awful, but the rest of the vehicle is perfectly fine.
- president_zippy 1y agoAre there any better sources we should read for how and why sodium-ion batteries are better than lithium-ion batteries? All I know is that the charge to mass ratio of an Na+ ion is less than that of an Li+ ion, and that elemental Na and Li are both highly-reactive with violent exothermic reactions when exposed to water. I need someone with chemistry or materials science experience to help me explain what the advantages are and how those advantages exist.
- adrianN 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison Has an overview
- duskwuff 1y agoThe important bit is that sodium is much cheaper than lithium, and that translates into the batteries being less expensive per watt-hour. They're larger and heavier for the same capacity, but the lower price makes up for it, especially in grid-scale storage (where size/weight is nearly irrelevant).
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoThey aren’t better. The allure is cheaper input materials, potentially very long lifespans and creating a hedge against the boom and bust cycle of the lithium market.
- briandw 1y agoHave a look at The Limiting Factor episode "The Hype and Reality of Sodium Ion Batteries" https://youtu.be/KjiqqafD_0w?si=txe6eODkSiasSylg https://youtu.be/KjiqqafD_0w?si=txe6eODkSiasSylg It's really well done and digs into all the details on sodium-ion. Lots to like with sodium-ion (charge rate for one) but cost isn't going to be competitive for at least 5 and more likely 10 years.
- CraigJPerry 1y agoHaven't watched the episode but the comment about price seems incorrect - CATL announced its pricing at $40 per kwh and said $19 is their target in future, which compares with $65 per kwh today for their li-ion
- jillesvangurp 1y agoThey also announced that CATL is starting mass production this December. The long term cost target might be closer to 10$/kwh. That's an unconfirmed rumor that has been circulating that is plausible based on material cost and other factors. The bottom line is, mass production is starting soon at cost levels that are probably undercutting LFP from day 1. CATL is explicitly targeting use for low end EVs. IMHO this chemistry is also a good match for things like trucks given the long battery lifetime and good enough energy density. Perfect for frequent rapid charging and intensive use in long range trucks.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoWatch the video. It’s another 15-20 years until it reaches LFP cost. $10 figure is completely made up and hyped up by hype influencers .
- jillesvangurp 1y agoThe video is demonstrably wrong if CATL is releasing what I just outlined in 2 months as they announced. You shouldn't believe anything you see on Youtube. There's a lot of anti EV nonsense floating around. > $10 figure is completely made up and hyped up by hype influencers I'm pretty sure there's more to that and do note the caveats I added. CATL is one of the largest battery producers in the world and they are basically calling BS on this in a big way that's hard to argue with (i.e. planning to ship product at scale in 2 months). Also, second generation product. They already have sodium ion based battery powered EVs in the market with their first generation. Apparently quite cheap and competitive with LFP. This is their v2. You shouldn't believe everything on Youtube.
- metalman 1y agoThat the worlds largest battery manufacturers have gone ahead with building gigawatt production plants is basicly the wake up call. They have done this based on real world deploymemt of electric cars in multiple markets over the last 3 years and of course for the main use as storage and buffering batteries, which will then allow for the full electrification of the transport sector, without putting undue strain on the,(thier) grid. this has further impact as energy costs will drop significantly, while noise and pollution also decrease dramaticaly,while increasing saftey and reiability. any country holding back is seriously fucked.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoYour personal use is drop in the ocean with how much power AI will require (10GW of datacenters already planned, multiply this by 100-1000x for next 100 yrs)
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoA parallel worth bearing in mind is that LFP batteries became super popular over the last few years and are now 50% of all EV batteries worldwide, but are still rare in the US. This is partly because the US is a richer market with higher end desires but it might mislead people in that geography into thinking that the battery mass manufacturing world moves slowly. Meanwhile in the storage market it's gone to 90% LFP as the big deployments take advantage of the cost reductions available. In fact the biggest impediment to sodium being rolled out was continuing reductions in LFP cost which made people less enhusiastic for alternatives. It appears they've managed to drive costs down even further, prompting its graduation into mass scale manufacture.
- IlikeKitties 1y agoI'd prefer LFP Batteries anyway. Much more stable chemistry in regards. Higher Cycle Life, Higher Temperature Stability and they are significantly less likely to blow up or catch fire in an accident. Their only disadvantage is energy density.
- alphabetag675 1y agoSodium batteries are much better for environment. Sodium is everywhere.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoLithium is common and present everywhere too.
- Jedd 1y agoIf safety is a concern, why not flow storage? I see enough reports of Li battery related unpleasantness to be slightly concerned on this front, and for fixed location storage I'm less concerned with density and more so with maintenance and life span. TFA talks about (favourable) temperature tolerance of Na, at least at the low end, I didn't see high end figures.
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- qnleigh 1y agoIf sodium batteries are so much cheaper, why is the emphasis of this article on batteries for trucks and not grid-scale storage? Isn't the latter much more impactful? Also naively I would expect sodium batteries to be heavier that lithium, which would make them worse for transportation but still fine for energy storage.
- perlgeek 1y agoProbably familiarity bias; the author has more contact with EVs and/or expect the reader to have more contact with them.
- PaulKeeble 1y agoI haven't seen any inverters for grid purposes for the wide Voltage range that Sodium produces. It may be the inverter organisations haven't got their yet and are waiting for the batteries to be available and cheap before it makes sense. I think a lot of households will choose Sodium just because of how cheap it will be but not until there is the basic inverter equipment to make use of it from the usual manufacturers.
- tim333 1y agoThey haven't produced many yet. And when they do they'll probably sell them for applications where they can charge most and make profits. The Pioneer Na(sodium) portable power station thing in the article isn't cheap. The grid storage will come when production ramps up.
- lambdaone 1y agoI can't stress enough how big a development this is in the process of making renewable energy not just the cheapest form of power, but one of the most reliable, something that will drive decarbonization in general, which will in turn drive world politics.
- megaman821 1y agoPeople are over excited about sodium-ion batteries. They are at least years away from price parity. The super-low numbers floating around are absolute fantasy until production is in the tens of gigawatt hours at least. Their real value is being a hedge on lithium prices. If large battery manufacturer can trivially reconfigure their lines to make sodium-ion batteries, that will be a giant check on large lithium price spikes.
- tim333 1y ago>CATL has announced battery pricing at the cell level in volume at $19/kWh. Sounds price competitive already?
- megaman821 1y agoNot until they actually make them "in volume". They could be ramping up volumes for years and years until they hit that price. When they start producing them, I would bet anything the initial run will not be $19/kWh.
- tim333 1y agoFair enough, I think that price is a while in the future but from another article: >In the meantime, CATL’s rival BYD said that its sodium-ion batteries have made progress in reducing cost and are already on track to be on par with lithium iron phosphate battery cost next year and even 70% less in the long run. The Chinese battery maker broke ground on a 30 GWh sodium-ion battery factory earlier this year.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoGiven the advantages of NaIon batteries over LFPs or NMC, why aren't we already seeing them in EVs (other than some test runs in China)? Is it that companies have already invested too much in the LFP or NMC process? It would seem switching to NaIon would be an easy decision.
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- zackmorris 1y agoI just heard about this post, so did a quick search and currently it looks like Sriko is the only company providing affordable sodium-ion batteries. They appear to be within about half the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. I used AI (first Google then Bing because it has ChatGPT 5) to create tables comparing battery types: A($/Wh) D(Wh/kg) D(Wh/L) P($) E(Wh) M(kg) Vol(L) V(V) C S URL(Sodium-ion) 0.46 97.50 235.79 1.81 3.9 0.04 0.017 3.0 3000 18650 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-18650-3-0v-1-3ah-3-90wh-20c-rechargeable-battery/ 0.34 114.29 258.31 3.23 9.6 0.084 0.037 3.0 3000 26700 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-26700-3-0v-3-2ah-9-60wh-3c-rechargeable-battery/ 0.32 134.78 258.89 9.98 31.0 0.23 0.120 3.1 5000 33140 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-battery-33140-3-1v-10ah-31wh-12c-cylindrical-battery/ 0.40 112.50 224.09 21.85 54.0 0.48 0.241 3.0 5000 46145 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-46145-3-0v-18ah-54wh-10c-rechargeable-battery/ 0.20 122.22 231.09 43.70 220.0 1.8 0.952 3.2 5000 pack https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-na-5c-70ah-220wh-battery/ C($/Wh) D(Wh/kg) D(Wh/L) P($) E(Wh) M(kg) Vol(L) V(V) C S URL(Lithium-ion) 0.23 252.00 761.77 2.85 12.6 0.05 0.017 3.6 300 18650 https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/samsung-35e 0.16 262.01 742.41 2.85 18.0 0.069 0.024 3.6 300 21700 https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/samsung-50e O: outlay D: density P: price E: energy M: mass Vol: volume V: voltage C: cycles S: size Note: 26700 is not the same as 27100, they are just what each site specializes in. Comment: I think that it should have been 18065 instead of 18650 because then the last 3 digits could be length in mm, same for the others, but what do I know. Edit: I forgot to add cycles. When considered, they drop the price of sodium-ion to roughly 5-10 times less than lithium-ion for the batteries shown here.
- zackmorris 1y agoIt bugged me that lithium-ion battery listings only state 300-500 charge cycles, so I did a deeper dive with AI and found these batteries for a better comparison: O($/Wh) D(Wh/kg) D(Wh/L) P($) E(Wh) M(kg) Vol(L) V(V) C S URL(Lithium-ion) 0.31 236.17 671.08 3.4 11.1 0.047 0.017 3.7 1000 18650 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Wholesale-18650-Lithium-Battery-INR18650-3_1601503766893.html 0.36 222.00 671.08 3.99 11.1 0.05 0.017 3.7 800 18650 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hot-Selling-Factory-Price-INR18650-30Q_1601159662361.html 0.83 160.00 290.20 4 4.8 0.03 0.017 3.2 2000 18650 https://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-18650-Rechargeable-Cell-3.2V-1500-mAh-4.8Wh-7.5A-Rate.aspx 0.36 227.85 1088.24 6.4 18 0.079 0.017 3.2 3000 18650 https://www.goldencellpower.com/product-item/18650-1100mah-3-2v-lifepo4-cells/ 0.36 222.78 1064.06 6.4 17.6 0.079 0.017 3.2 3000 18650 https://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-18650-Rechargeable-Cell-3.2V-2000-mAh-6.4Wh-6A-Rate.aspx 0.80 134.74 365.71 10.18 12.8 0.095 0.035 3.2 4000 26650 https://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-26650-Rechargeable-Cell-3.2V-4000-mAh-12.8Wh-12A-Rate.aspx 0.24 184.00 396.07 3.5 14.72 0.08 0.037 3.2 3000 26700 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/lithium-ion-battery-cell-26700-3_1601277009356.html 0.31 240.00 413.29 4.8 15.36 0.064 0.037 3.2 4000 26700 https://www.sunpowernewenergy.com/product/26700-high-rate-lifepo4-battery-45e/ 0.31 160.00 128.28 4.8 15.36 0.096 0.120 3.2 4000 33140 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Quality-LMFP-5AH-Cell-Lithium_1601161018743.html 0.28 256.41 167.03 5.6 20 0.078 0.120 3.2 5000 33140 https://www.evlithium.com/LiFePO4-Battery/33140-20ah-lifepo4-battery-cell.html Edit: dangit, I made a mistake in my previous post. A($/Wh) and C($/Wh) were supposed to be O($/Wh) for outlay. I fixed this one to provide context.