As long term readers surely know by now we've been 'deep in the weeds' delving into the details on EV battery trends for awhile. Our big post on lithium batteries gets updated every so often and is still pretty much on target today, and the somewhat inflated title is more appropriate than ever.
As go the Batteries, So Goes the Nation!
And as you might imagine it's still worth a read, this post here assumes you're pretty much aware of all that stuff. A great overview, absent the (most of) the Sodium discussion is on Youtube with The Limiting Factor: on pack and packaging (and LFP) issues. IMHO Jordan is the best at this type of video.
And more appropriately focused on this future, NA, LFP, Solid, also from The Limiting Factor Youtube.
EDIT Early 2026: This is playing out pretty much as advertised. NA (Sodium Ion) batteries ARE in commercial production and ARE available in actual production vehicles, at least in China.
One unforeseen wrinkle in this is the crash in Lithium prices. Refined Lithium Carbonate underwent a 90% price drop from late 2023 to late 2025. There is still a price difference, but it's not as pronounced. This has removed much of the largest advantage for Sodium based batteries (they're still better at low temperatures) and seems to have slowed the enormous investment required to bring Sodium based battery factories online.
So far, partially as a result, Sodium BEV's are not as yet significantly cheaper than their LFP brethren although only slightly less performant. Obviously this may change as the technologies advance, but are unlikely (see below) to have truly significant impact on overall costs in the near term (3-5 yr.) future. We still believe that NA is nearly ideal for House and Grid-Scale grid-tied energy storage solutions, assuming a significant price difference remains.
All these battery types depend heavily on Graphite as a very significant component in their production. You don't hear much about how that market has become dominated by China.
Since that is less of a factor in most on-coming solid state battery designs, some of which are in low volume commercial production now, you should see that as a significant factor in the future. Since most solid state designs are targeted at lower weight/higher density uses, and Lithium has much higher energy density, most current solid state battery development is Lithium-based. End EDIT.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Although there's not much popular awareness yet, the press that covers battery trends and technologies has recently been touting Sodium (Na) batteries as being the next big thing over Lithium (NMC, NCA and LFP) type cells. This isn't all hype. Sodium based batteries will almost certainly be a factor within a couple years. And it's still possible that solid state batteries (almost certainly Lithium based) will win out over both of these.
However, as usual (Gotta grab those headlines!!) it's been a little over-hyped. Much of the noise has said or implied that suddenly EV batteries will cost half as much. We may believe that the "Half as Much" headlines are going to prove accurate over time, but that will also likely prove true for Lithium based batteries as well. Sodium may drive costs down somewhat, but are likely to have much less effect on EV prices than what's being touted. Let's look at some numbers.
A few assumptions: ...and yes we know prices are changing, but the overall ratios should be valid.
Lithium Carbonate raw battery material currently costs around $20/Kg in industrial quantities.
A mid size car uses around 50Kg of Lithium. (Tesla 'Long Range' and other battery-equivalent vehicles closer to 60Kg.)
Refined Sodium, made suitable for EV batteries costs roughly 10% as much.
So looked at on the face of it $20x50Kg = $1000 and if Sodium costs 90% less that's a savings of $900.
Yay, we're saved!! $900 off your next $35,000+ car. That's OVER 2% OFF!
Even if we're off by 2X the thought still holds.
Which is not nothing, but hardly half off, and of course it's not that simple.
The inconvenient truths: Energy actually usable by the car 'drives' all of this.
The best currently available Lithium batteries have 15%-20% better energy density than the oncoming champion, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries [which also have no Nickel or Cobalt in them].
Those same 'best' Lithium batteries have 100% better energy density than current Sodium batteries, and so LFP cells are around 80% better.
Yes both the LFP and Sodium cells are improving over time, but all of them are improving, at different rates...
The cost of the 'other materials' that make up a battery and the manufacturing processes/costs end up being roughly equal on a per cell basis, but you need considerably more Sodium cells to store equivalent energy.
When you account for the disparity in size and weight, and the cost of making and packaging more cells the current (actually in production now) Sodium batteries are actually behind on costs overall on a per-equivalent-vehicle basis. Will that change? Of course it will.
Aggregating all the noise and announcements about Sodium batteries makes it a reasonably good bet that they will improve by 50% or so on a cost and density basis over the next three-four years. LFP cells will probably improve by 20%-30% over the same period. That should put them on a nearly even footing except that the size and weight of the Sodium based battery will still almost certainly not be completely competitive.
Reliability: Part of the reason we're comparing Sodium Ion batteries here with Lithium Iron Phosphate is because they are in fact comparable and should see by far the biggest growth over the next half decade. LFP is already poised to out produce the older NMC/NCA chemistries. Yes this plays into the reliability discussion:
A current 300 mi. range capable EV probably has NMC or NCA Lithium Ion batteries in it. Assuming you're looking to retain 80% of that range over it's 'life' it should survive 800-1500 full charge (equivalent) cycles. That's 250K-350K miles. Are you keeping *your* cars out to 350,000 miles? Huh, maybe not... ;-)
An LFP based car with an equivalent size/weight battery pack may do 260 miles, but based on current estimates will survive 2000+ full charge equivalent cycles (or more!) so that's at least 500K miles. ...and probably much more. [Tesla says they'e producing million mile capable cars now. Hard to prove.]
Who knows how it will actually work out, but the Sodium folks are throwing around 5000 cycle life type numbers. So for an equivalent size/weight we're talking a 200-230 mile range, maybe a Million mile battery?
All this is talking primarily about cycle-life. The number of battery charge-discharge cycles it can live through before reaching 20% degradation (80% remaining usability.) As that number gets better and better you have to consider the inevitable time based chemical breakdown that occurs (at different rates) for all battery chemistries. Each manufacturer's quality control and materials choices will have large impact here, so you may not be able to make generalized assumptions for each battery type. Will Sodium be the winner? That may depend more on the manufacturing choices made to drive the costs down than on inherent advantages of the type of cell. Keep in mind that it is not in a car manufacturer's best interest to make a car that lasts 20 years, even if the battery is capable of it.
If we ignore the single outlier (Chevy Bolt LG Batteries boo-boo) you'll see in our previous coverage that the failure rate for EV batteries is already well below 1%/yr, and improving rapidly. Teslas are already below 0.5%. While it's possible that the improvements in LFP and Sodium will impact this in a positive manner, it seems just as probable that the rush to reduce costs could have the opposite effect. Regardless, 'big improvements' that push the needle by 0.01% are not going to have any real effect on people's lives, absent bragging rights by the manufacturer.
Safety: Despite what the media would have you believe, EV's already catch on fire LESS per mile traveled than gas cars do. LFP batteries catch on fire roughly a fifth as much (and are less nasty when they do). Now while Sodium based batteries may well be even safer (anything with that much energy in it presents -some- fire risk) we're once again so far down in the low percentages that it makes little practical difference. ...absent Media Coverage and thus public perception.
Don't forget that EV's are overall safer than gas cars (and Teslas lead by a considerable margin in this) and that we don't have a good grasp of the trade-offs that a bigger heavier (sodium) battery may bring. Keeping in mind that a well designed heavier car may do better in some types of crashes than a well designed lighter car, but the lighter car will almost certainly avoid more accidents. How do you account for the crashes that didn't happen?
Summation:
As usual, the answer is 'We don't know the answer' or 'It depends.'
The main takeaway from current EV's (especially Teslas) is "Don't Worry About It."
Seriously, it's gotten good enough that random happenstance and changes in your life are much more likely to cause you to change vehicles than the battery life in your next EV. Even if you're in that 5% or whatever that sees a failure there's 50/50 odds it'll be covered by the 100-120K mi. warranties they have on those things. Hey, you may reach 200K miles and have a battery failure, then you have a decision to make: $10-15K for a new battery or $35K for a new(er?) car. Hey, choose wisely, but it's not like you didn't get significant value out of that first 200K mi. on a per dollar basis.
The other 'as usual' point is that they are getting cheaper over time and that will probably continue (BYD is making under $15K cars in China that are pretty good right now) but remember that waiting forever buys you no advantages right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment