People often complain about lab breakthroughs going nowhere in the real world. That makes CATL's claims for its Naxtra sodium-ion batteries interesting. CATL is the world's biggest battery maker. If anyone can bring a product to market, it can.
Current lithium-ion battery pack prices are around $100-150/kWh. CATL says one day sodium-ion batteries could cost just $10/kWh. That would require a lot to go right, and massive economies of scale. But that has worked for lithium batteries, and CATL has the heft to make economies of scale plausible.
If fossil fuels and nuclear energy are already feeling the heat from renewables plus lithium being cheaper, renewables plus sodium-ion batteries at $10/kWh would be an annihilation event for other energy sources. They could also usher in an age of micro-grids and decentralized energy, reducing reliance on big business, autocratic countries, and large corporations. Fingers crossed it happens soon.
CATL's sodium-ion batteries, which the company claims may eventually cost a fraction of lithium batteries, have passed a significant milestone.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
2 Comments
I’ve seen $19 being the figure used most recently. And the comparison point is probably LFP batteries which are a bit cheaper than the price you’ve quoted. But either way it’s still a huge price drop that should have real benefit.
To bad USA just stripped all the DOE research funding. This is the equivalent of the cab industry limping into the Uber age with 20 year old crown Victoria’s with puke stains and “broken meters”.