If Chinese battery tech continues to improve sufficiently to increase build out of utility grade power storage facilities
Since you may have read about this, do you know if sodium-ion plays into this? The first commercial cells I’ve seen go for LFP prices on Ali but I’m guessing that’s far from representative of what they cost B2B and they’re supposed to be getting much cheaper than LFP.
Right now the Sodium-ion tech is still in its infancy. It’s higher priced than it will be as the market scales. I expect it will find more use in stationary storage capacity than mobile devices as it’s power density is a bit lower, but the material cost is much lower and therefore potentially useful for utility grade or home power banks. It’s theoretically able to benefit from a lot of the same technology that Lithium cell batteries use, so cross-chemistry innovation potential is high.
Yes. Could be exciting in the near future. As the article points out, it’s a bit less power dense than lithium, and has a slightly worse power to weight ratio, but that doesn’t necessarily make it bad, it’s just better suited for different market niches than lithium. I could see urban cab companies and other short range fleet uses preferring sodium-ion, as they’ll have a higher rate of cycling and wear, and the cheaper cost of a battery will represent a significant net benefit. I think consumer grade vehicles are going to prefer Lithium for the foreseeable future though.
Since you may have read about this, do you know if sodium-ion plays into this? The first commercial cells I’ve seen go for LFP prices on Ali but I’m guessing that’s far from representative of what they cost B2B and they’re supposed to be getting much cheaper than LFP.
Right now the Sodium-ion tech is still in its infancy. It’s higher priced than it will be as the market scales. I expect it will find more use in stationary storage capacity than mobile devices as it’s power density is a bit lower, but the material cost is much lower and therefore potentially useful for utility grade or home power banks. It’s theoretically able to benefit from a lot of the same technology that Lithium cell batteries use, so cross-chemistry innovation potential is high.
Just came acoss this. A density of 175Whr/kg in mass produced EVs.
Yes. Could be exciting in the near future. As the article points out, it’s a bit less power dense than lithium, and has a slightly worse power to weight ratio, but that doesn’t necessarily make it bad, it’s just better suited for different market niches than lithium. I could see urban cab companies and other short range fleet uses preferring sodium-ion, as they’ll have a higher rate of cycling and wear, and the cheaper cost of a battery will represent a significant net benefit. I think consumer grade vehicles are going to prefer Lithium for the foreseeable future though.
Yeah. Probably buses too. What’s really exciting for me is the significant potential for lowering total vehicle cost.