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CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

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Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#61

Post by tuatoru »

quonn wrote: post #18
tromp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that sodium ion is claimed to - charge twice as fast as lithium ion - have double the number of charge cycles - cost substantially less - be substantially safer - and more environmentally friendly I think it would be the clear preference for all but the highest performance vehicles. Note that Tesla is also trying to reduce cost in moving to 4680 cells [1]: > the main reason Tesla is using 4680 batteries at the…

Comparing to LFP the advantages are not that big. It might be cheaper and scale better. Charging speed is now mostly limited by public charger speed and good enough. I expect sodium batteries to have a big impact in cars that cost 25k or less.

> cars that cost 25k or less

In other words, most cars.

"Americans remain resistant to the lure of EVs, which are still unaffordable": https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/11/only-1-in-3-americans-w...

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#62

Post by benj111 »

404mm wrote: post #45
jimnotgym wrote: post #26

The weekly HN 'new battery chemistry will solve all worlds problems' story. I will believe it when I see it

I’m more worried that $5k savings per EV will translate to $500 per EV for the end customer. More than anything, I welcome the switch away from lithium for both economic and environmental reasons.

In the short term maybe. Long term lower prices means more sales -> more economies of scale -> lower prices.

So long term I would expect more savings not less.

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#63

Post by cogman10 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #19
tromp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that sodium ion is claimed to - charge twice as fast as lithium ion - have double the number of charge cycles - cost substantially less - be substantially safer - and more environmentally friendly I think it would be the clear preference for all but the highest performance vehicles. Note that Tesla is also trying to reduce cost in moving to 4680 cells [1]: > the main reason Tesla is using 4680 batteries at the…

The assumption there is that lithium is fully optimized. It's not.

Granted, but lithium has also had a significant amount of additional R&D, particularly in manufacturing.

Time will tell if sodium batteries can be competitive, I don't know that it's clear yet.

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#64

Post by tuatoru »

akira2501 wrote: post #57
chris222 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the average drive. The p95 will be a lot higher in North America than China or Europe. Theres also elevation, winters and our obsession with going 70-80mph on highways.

Obsession? The higher the speed the greater the capacity of the road, and when freight has to travel 2000 miles by road, the 10mph/h difference makes a considerable impact on the time. Isn't it the case that Germany completely removes speed limits for some portions of it's "Autobahns?" What "obsession" drives that decision? There's this assumption that all the negative qualities of road are down to malignable user be…

> The higher the speed the greater the capacity of the road

This is false[1]. Stopping distance increases as the square of speed, and therefore safe following distance also. This and other effects mean that 80 mph is well down on 30 mph.

Theoretically capacity should be independent of speed[2], but in practise it seems to decrease at high speeds because most drivers are careful.

1. Plot of safe capacity vs speed: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safe-road-capacity-for-c...

2. https://civilengineering-softstudies.com/57-traffic-capacity...

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#65

Post by tuatoru »

nharada wrote: post #13

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?

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#Commerciali...

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#66

Post by benj111 »

tschesnok wrote: post #34

Why does the article do a head to head comparison between the new battery and a "generic" Lithium battery.. and then later we see the specs of the Tesla battery and it is just about identical with the new battery.. but you know.. more energy dense and in production. The differences seem to be more in the rounding range. Sure.. twice the milage.. but show me a car where this matters past 500k. Always clickbait.. Now c…

true but if youre going to compare anything to a musk product in R&D then it should probably be cold fusion anti grav cars.

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#67

Post by throwawaymaths »

cogman10 wrote: post #63
throwawaymaths wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption there is that lithium is fully optimized. It's not.

Granted, but lithium has also had a significant amount of additional R&D, particularly in manufacturing. Time will tell if sodium batteries can be competitive, I don't know that it's clear yet.

Lithium and sodium are similar enough that it's hard to imagine that some of the learnings from lithium haven't translated to sodium.

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#68

Post by fbdab103 »

chris222 wrote: post #49
auscad wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CATL is the world’s biggest EV battery manufacturer, and they’re planning to mass produce these batteries in the next few months. This isn’t your run of the mill university research press release.

You can already buy these cells in home sogens starting early next year. https://www.bluettipower.com/pages/ces-2022

I do not care for their promo graphics of 10kwh sitting exposed alongside the exterior wall. Were I in a position to be constructing a battery backup, it is going to get its own dedicated concrete shed, separated as far as possible from the house.

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#69

Post by tuatoru »

nharada wrote: post #13

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?

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.

Re: CATL's Sodium-Ion Battery

#70

Post by hokkos »

Tade0 wrote: post #32

I've been following the developments around this chemistry since the time Tiamat announced their sodium-ion battery and it appears that in this case it's not all sunshine and rainbows: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-06/catl-s...

Another opinion on the difficulties of Na-ion here :

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexandergirau_are-investors-...

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