1y ago

The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January

www.engadget.com The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January

JAC Motors, a Volkswagen-backed Chinese automaker, unveiled the first mass-produced EV with a sodium-ion battery through its new Yiwei brand. Although sodium-ion battery tech has a lower density than lithium-ion, its lower costs, simpler and more abundant supplies and superior cold-weather performan...

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1y ago

The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January - Sodium-ion batteries have lower density but are cheaper and perform better in cold weather

www.engadget.com /the-first-ev-with-a-lithium-free-sodium-battery-hits-the-road-in-january-214828536.html

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1y ago

The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January

www.engadget.com /the-first-ev-with-a-lithium-free-sodium-battery-hits-the-road-in-january-214828536.html

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1y ago

The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January

www.engadget.com /the-first-ev-with-a-lithium-free-sodium-battery-hits-the-road-in-january-214828536.html

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178 comments

'252 km (157 miles) range' to save others the same skimming I did
- Not bad for that battery's first outing
  
  Perfect for my needs. But I doubt it will ever be for sale here in the U.S.
- I've found people vastly overstated how much range they need. 99% of usage is in the city between home and somewhere else. 250km is perfect if the price is right.
  
  For daily use, sure - but it completely excludes itself as an option for road trips in the US and parts of Canada. There's a stretch of interstate road near me with nearly a 100 mile gap between service stations.
  I know that this isn't the purpose of this battery, but it's a valid reason why a lot of people might be hesitant to buy one. Many people can't afford multiple vehicles for different purposes. You have the car you drive to work with, and if you happen to go on a trip you just use the same thing.
  Maybe 99% of use occurs within constraints that this battery can handle, but if you can only afford one vehicle, then this is still a pretty suboptimal option. That being said... it could still be cheap enough to not matter. I didn't see any mention of price in that article.
  
  Exactly. We have two cars, and we only need one to have any kind of range. The other is fine with 250km/150mi range, but it needs to be relatively inexpensive to buy and repair. It'll just be for a daily commute and around-town driving, no expectation for long-distance.
  It doesn't need space for people or stuff, just 2-4 passengers is plenty. It'll strictly be for commutes and small trips to the grocery store and whatnot, the other car can be used for larger trips.
- Id like to add that there are different versions of the car, with the long range version being 302km range, and the battery mass to energy ratio is actually average compared to other batteries.
  https://www.batterydesign.net/sehol-e10x-sodium-ion/
- Wow that sounds very useable
- And recharging times?
- Perfectly usable for urban travel in Chinese cities

This is awesome news. Not because of the car, but because it builds the supply lines for an alternative battery chemistry.
People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types. Lithium is expensive and polluting and only makes sense if you're limited by weight & space. Cheaper batteries, even if they're bigger/heavier, will do wonders to the economics of sustainable electricity production.
- People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types
  Compared to other battery chemistry types using lithium makes tons of sense.
  Lead acid type batteries like sealed and AGM are cheap but not power dense and do not offer the same discharge ability that lithium offers without damaging the battery (AGM fixes this but it's still an issue). Some lead acid batteries require continuous maintenance and vent toxic gasses which may be an issue depending on your encloser.
  Nickel cadmium batteries solve a lot of issues that lead acid batteries are plagued with however they suffer from moisture intrusion issues causing self discharge. Nickel cadmium also suffers from memory effect which may completely ruin pour battery depending on your use. The elephant in the room with nickel cadmium is that it's banned in some countries including the European union due to how toxic cadmium is.
  Now with lithium, it's a very energy dense battery which means you need less batteries to meet a capacity or you can fit more capacity into an encloser. There isn't any electrolyte or water maintenance you need to worry about. You can discharge and recharge as you wish with minimal damage. Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
  
  I find it interesting that, on a post about sodium ion batteries, your comment completely excludes them
  
  I agree that older commercialized battery types aren't so interesting, but my point was about all the battery types that haven't had enough R&D yet to be commercially mass-produced.
  Power grids don't care much about density - they can build batteries where land is cheap, and for fire control they need to artificially space out higher-density batteries anyway. There are heaps of known chemistries that might be cheaper per unit stored (molten salt batteries, flow batteries, and solid state batteries based on cheaper metals), but many only make sense for energy grid applications because they're too big/heavy for anything portable.
  I'm saying it's nuts that lithium ion is being used for cases where energy density isn't important. It's a bit like using bottled water on a farm because you don't want to pay to get the nearby river water tested. It's great that sodium ion could bring new economics to grid energy storage, but weird that the only reason it got developed in the first place was for a completely different industry.
  
  Now with lithium.... are much much much more expensive
  and explosive
  
  Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
  Seems like some pretty big and numerous downsides lmao
  
  *enclosure
  
  Don't forget the volatility of Lithium batteries if they ever get damaged or punctured.
  
  What about nickle-metal hydride?
- Lithium makes more sense when weight is an issue, for example when you have to carry the battery around. Sodium batteries could be good for grid storage if they can be implemented as scale cheaply enough, especially using common materials.
  
  A quick wikipedia read implies that sodium-ion batteries could be half or less the cost vs lithium. Also this:
  Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries.
  That's probably most of why it's cheaper, and it's also way less damaging to the environment if they truly can be made from mostly sodium and iron.
  I'm more concerned about the safety aspects. It seems there are two main types:
  aqueous - quite safe, but also likely very heavy per unit of energy
  carbon - high risk (probably similar to lithium)
  That's a big reason why I and probably many others aren't interested in the current batch of EVs. Yeah they're pretty safe, but they're quite violent when they fail. I'd probably buy a sodium-ion EV if it could get 100-150 miles range reliably. That would be absolutely sufficient for my commute, even in the winter, and it would make a fantastic "around town" car when I'm not working.
- Not just that, we don’t have enough lithium deposits atm to build enough lithium evs to last more than a few decades if we act smart (which we generally do not).
- Cheaper batteries, even if they're bigger/heavier
  Yes, just what we need is more vehicles on the road that weigh as much as a tank but accelerate like a Ferrari. I'm sure that won't cause any problems.

Curious how it'll perform in real world conditions. Sodium batteries are supposed to have much better charging times and don't degrade the way lithium batteries do, both of which would be huge. Fingers crossed they live up to expectations.
(Also obligatory "expand and improve public transit damnit!")
- As some used to "gotchas" and things aren't free, I'm wondering what kind of shortcomings[1] these batteries have that others do not.
  [1] for example acid batteries can push a lot of power, but they are heavy and contain lead and well... acid. The nickel cadmium doesn't contain lead and acid, but has memory so you should follow discharge them before charging again. They are lighter, but still not light. Lithium ion are light, don't have memory, but can explode, also lose life if they are kept fully discharged or charged for long periods of time. They also slowly discharge when not in use, mainly due to protective circuit needing electricity to run.
  
  Their only downside is having a little less energy density than lithium ion ones. You need a larger battery for the same capacity basically. Everything else is a positive - they are even non-flammable and the materials to make them are abundant and easy to obtain.
- Where I live they recently bought a bunch of electric and hybrid public buses.
  
  Hope they simply bought trolley buses and didn't waste money on battery buses
  It's such a waste to put batteries in inner city buses
- expand and improve public transit dammit!
  Currently living in Shenzhen and you'd be surprised that you can actually have it both ways. You can get around via transit quite easily, but also driving isn't too difficult. The problem with US cities is mostly just single family homes, which waste a bunch of space. If everything is less dense, you have to drive further to get to where you want to go, and building public transit makes less sense since it needs to service more areas to reach the same amount of people

Hold up, they solved the energy sink issue with the salt batteries? That's wicked. There were physicists arguing with each other that the power you put in couldn't be gotten back out.
- Do you have more details about that?
  
  Yeah, I'm quite curious myself as to why it's more difficult. My chemistry knowledge is chem1 level so all I know is that sodium atoms are larger and the energy levels for state change are slightly different
  
  Well, sure, but you're asking me about something I saw in passing half a decade ago. Basically, the main difficulties with Na Ion Batteries and especially the "Glass Batteries" were the lack of proper cathode with which to create current and also maintain the structure against the naturally occurring atomic reshuffling. In particular there was controversy over John B. Goodenough's research because other battery scientists noted the electrodes both ends contained anode materials which should theoretically produce no electrochemical potential and therefor no cell voltage.
  More modern attempts appear to use Graphene structures, which is promising in a lot of different ways: structural stability, durability, current, and material availability.
  BTW Rest in Peace John, your good deeds outweigh the bad: a true scientist worth remembering for all time.
- That is the case with every energy storage though in some cases it's more pronounced.

We've only got a stated range out of this (252km/157mi) but there are a lot of factors where this could do well. Sodium batteries should be cheaper, so it'd be great if that translated to the final sale price. Depending on charge times and where you live, this could be a perfectly practical vehicle. If it doesn't degrade like lithium batteries, then that'd be even better. Might make for a great secondary vehicle (or everyday driver, depending).
- I'm expecting to see dual battery EVs in the not too distant future. A Sodium battery for the primary that gets the most charges and discharges which can be easy and cheaper to replace. Beside that a Lithium battery which would only be drawn from after the Sodium battery was exhausted. This way if you're doing shallow discharges for your "around town" driving then charging at night, and deep discharges for longer road trips where the energy density of Lithium shines.
  
  Lithium batteries dont like being stored fully charged they will degrade over time.
  
  I'm still dreaming of seeing EVs with flexible battery space, which users can fill according to their needs.
  Like a car comes with space for 10x 10 kWh slots.
  If 20 kWh serve your usual needs, the other spaces remain empty.
  And if you plan longer trips and don't want to recharge each 100 miles, you put in additional batteries. Those batteries don't need to be owned, but can be rented.
  Ideally there are lots of battery rental stations, where you can get charged batteries and instead of recharging the batteries in the EV, the rent'n'swap stations recharge them.
  During (EV) wise low use times, these stations can provide a buffer to the energy grid.
  ...one can dream...
  
  Interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that possibility!
- The other thing is that it could also potentially be significantly cheaper to replace if it wears out. And could potentially be easier to recycle too, if it's common salts. I'm optimistic about it!
- The economics of an undegrading car battery are interesting.
  It's looking like these batteries will allow electric cars to be comparable to an ICE car in terms of price and cheaper to run.
  So people will buy them as it makes sense. Then run the car until it falls apart then they will have a very large battery effectively for free. Does that get placed in a new car? Converted into home storage? Grid storage? Cheaply recycled?
- That's a perfect range for me. If it's relatively cheap and charges reasonably well in the winter, I'll buy it.
  We currently have two cars:
  hybrid sedan - only used for commute (50mi round trip) and around-town trips
  minivan - mostly used for long trips, or when my spouse needs to take the kids somewhere while I'm at work
  A lot of my neighbors have a similar setup because either one person doesn't work or works at home, but they often need to use both cars simultaneously. If it's priced well, it'll sell well.
  The main problem with existing EVs are that they either have far too little range (e.g. original Leaf w/ 70 miles range), or are way too expensive because they try to get too much range (200+ mile range). That higher range is kind of necessary because of degradation, whereas if the battery were cheaper to replace, more people would be willing to buy something with lower range and replace the battery after a few years.
- 252km is 3 days worth of commuting for many people I know. For me personally it is one and hald days of work, moving around in a diesel beast. I would go stupid giddy if I was handed one of these for a daily work driver

Question to anyone who might know more: would sodium based batteries be better than lithium ones for the environment, in terms of recycling or disposing of it?
In case they are indeed better, would they be better because it's better to use less lithium in general (so if you use more sodium based ones, you use less lithium) or would they be also better because their own disposal is "nicer" (as in less toxic) for the environment?
- Well, Sodium is the 6th most abundant element on Earth, so there's a lot more of it and the extraction process is probably far more environmentally friendly.
  Since Sodium batteries are so new I don't think we have data on the toxicity, disposal or recycling avenues yet.
  
  They're actually old tech. They just could never match lithium.
  They'll shine as standing storage more so than mobile applications. Home storage will benefit greatly from their improvements
  
  Interesting! So it would make sense to have tons of sodium batteries for all purposes for which one doesn't need maybe higher capacity or performance as I understand lithium batteries offer
  
  It was a light bulb moment to me when I realised toxicity is at least somewhat correlated with abundance.
  Like lots of metals can be toxic but something like iron is so common you could just throw it on the ground and while certainly not ideal it's far from a major problem. The environment is very good at dealing with iron.
- I don't find the source anymore, but i saw a lifetime analysis about sodium ion batteries. Overall they are slighly worse than lithium ion due to higher energy input required during fabrication, despite better mineral availability.
  The most common Na-ion batteries use Prussian Blue.
  
  I suppose maybe they're still useful innovations if they can be made with minerals which are more available.
  Probably, we could achieve a balance between one type and the other, but I'm daydreaming now...
- The main idea here is that we won’t run out of raw materials very easily when using stuff that’s relatively cheap and abundant. Well at least the ions are. Who knows what the anode and cathode are made of. Probably the usual materials; otherwise they would have mentioned it. If they still use cobalt in the cathode, you can’t really avoid the ethical questions that come with it.
  Producing all the other materials can be rather energy intensive depending on the method used, so it depends. If you buy your metals from a country with hardly any environmental regulation, you can be pretty sure they don’t give a dingo’s kidney as to how many trees are chopped down and how many puppies are thrown in a furnace to get the next shipment of metals delivered.
  Also, the electrolyte could be more or less harmful to humans and the environment. As far as the environmental impact is concerned, these batteries probably come with all the usual issues. Currently there just aren’t any perfect solutions commercially available. Regardless, this seems like a step in the right direction IMO.

My doctor says I can't buy it. Is there a low sodium version?

Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They are highly likely over-hyped and the actually realized products will have more problems than the current established tech initially.
- Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with grain of salt.
  Well yeah, it's sodium.
  
  too easy...
- Normally you're right. It seems like every day there is a new revolutionary battery tech with no real estimate when it'll ever be in use. But in this case, according to the article, deliveries will start next month which means they're already in production.
- Sure. I'm in no rush to replace my car with one of these, but it's a great thing that this technology is already in production. With these actually going into real cars that people can buy and drive, we'll get more data so that any serious issues will hopefully be identified and addressed in the next generation.
- What kind of salt?
  
  Sodium-ion.

Sooo... It's a salt truck?
- It's a salt in battery
  
  Volkswagen: Stop hitting yourself.. Stop hitting yourself.
  But you can't stop hitting youraelf because Volkswagen has you by the wrists and is usng them to make you hit yourself with your own hands over, and over again.
- as much as any other electric vehicle out there

Unfortunately the page is behind the yahoo consent tracker and my DNS resolver by precaution refused to connect.
- http://web.archive.org/web/20231228002154/http://www.engadget.com/the-first-ev-with-a-lithium-free-sodium-battery-hits-the-road-in-january-214828536.html
- Inline-js and third-party js disabled loads the page without any consent.

Where is the sodium coming from?
- My diet, probably
  
  Low blood pressure gang unite 🤜
- The ocean?
  
  Nope. Mining. Soda ash (sodium carbonate) is one of the best raw materials for these
  
  I hope not, because salt isn't a renewable resource. And who the hell wants to fight the auto industry for something we need for food?
- It comes from stars.
- Stars probably
- Stardust.

Before clicking I knew it would be Chinese

- These ones look pretty normal to me. I think there are a few options now that look like regular cars. The only difference usually is they don't have a front grill because they don't need one.
  
  Yeah, my guess is that it's the lack of a front grill that makes them look goofy to people. You'll get used to it.
- What are you on about lol, this literally looks like a normal subcompact car.
  VW up in production since 2011 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Up
  Skoda citigo
  https://webapps.skoda-auto.sk/Cenniky-a-katalogy/cenniky/Skoda_Citigo_cennik.pdf
  
  Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
  The Volkswagen Up (stylized as Volkswagen up!) is a city car produced by the Volkswagen Group since 2011. It was unveiled at the 2011 International Motor Show Germany (IAA). Production of the Up started in December 2011 at the Volkswagen Plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. It is part of the part of the New Small Family (NSF) series of models, alongside the SEAT Mii and Škoda Citigo which are rebadged versions of the Up, with slightly different front and rear fascias. The SEAT and Škoda versions were manufactured in the same factory, before being withdrawn from sale in 2021 and 2020 respectively. Production of the Up ended in October 2023. A battery electric version, called E-up, was launched in autumn 2013.
  ^article ^| ^about
- Have a look at the Cupra Born, looks awesome and is a great car. Already 18 months old as a design.
- They don't need a a front opening to the radiator, that might be why you find them strange.
- E-berlingo looks exactly the same as normal Berlingo. Since it's a fairly new design I'm guessing they had both versions in mind when designing the ICE one.
- Agreed, just give me Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer and id be happy. Bonus if it has the same interior and no shitty tracking bs.

178 comments