China's CATL to Boost Sodium-Ion Batteries Push, CTO Says

(Yicai) Jan. 28 -- Contemporary Amperex Technology, the world's biggest producer of electric vehicle batteries, aims to widely promote sodium-ion batteries, which have started to achieve scalability in certain areas as a replacement for lithium-ion products, marking the beginning of a broader energy restructuring, according to its chief technology officer.Sodium-ion batteries have clear advantages but also disadvantages compared with lithium-ion batteries, Gao Huan said in a recent interview. The benefits include easier access to sodium resources than to lithium ones, better low-temperature performance, higher safety, and less significant temperature increases during high-rate charging, but on the other hand, they have higher industrialization costs, a less mature supply chain, and lower energy density, Gao pointed out.Sodium-ion batteries became a hot topic in the battery industry, following the release of CATL's Tianxing II series solutions for light commercial vehicles. Notably, the low-temperature version is the first mass-produced sodium-ion battery on the market.CATL launched its sodium-ion battery brand Naxtra last April, with its products becoming the world's first mass-produced, high-density ones of their kind. Industry insiders see the move as a significant indicator of sodium-ion batteries accelerating their entry into the commercial application stage.However, Gao cautioned that sodium-ion batteries are still in the early stages of development, with their development path to be similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, but may progress more rapidly. CATL plans to ensure that within the next three years, the cost-effectiveness and energy density of sodium-ion batteries will be comparable to that of lithium-ion ones, he pointed out.At the supplier conference held at the end of last year, CATL said that sodium-ion batteries would be widely used in battery swapping, passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and energy storage this year, paving the way for a new trend of dual-track development of sodium-ion and lithium-ion batteries.The Aion UT Super, a joint model launched by JD.Com, GAC Group's new energy vehicle arm GAC Aion, and CATL, will reportedly feature a sodium-ion battery edition, with mass production expected to begin in the second quarter of this year.Shipments of sodium-ion batteries for autos and non-autos will likely exceed 100 gigawatt-hours by 2030, according to data from think tank China EV100.Morgan Stanley predicted that as supply chain capacities improve over the next three years, the decline in cost will accelerate. When production capacity reaches 100 GWh, sodium-ion batteries could be more than 30 percent cheaper than lithium-iron phosphate ones.Editor: Martin Kadiev