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 performance could help accelerate mass EV adoption.
The problem is that this is a Chinese automaker and things aren’t looking good between the Western world and China right now…
The batteries for the cars in this article are made by Farasis Energy, which is an American company. Northvolt also has their sodium program, and Natron Energy is already making stationary backup batteries.
CATL had announced big plans for sodium, but they’ve been oddly silent about it ever since, so I’m not actually sure if China has a homegrown sodium project right now.