Sodium Ion // CATL and Faradion // Managing Expectations 

the depth of your explanations is so well done, incredible. I don't know shit about sodium ion and after your video I have a broad and some technical understanding of the matter. It is entertaining too - the best! I am a teacher and the way you explain here is a true inspiration. Thank you! Proud patreon!!!

Very well done. Especially the comparison to nature with Chlorophyll..

Sodium ion for stationary storage and lithium ion for transportation appears to possibly be the future. Reducing the stress on the lithium supply chain by swapping to sodium for stationary storage batteries would be a good thing.

Thank you Jordan. Your videos are so educational. Much appreciate you.

Geez, I can never get over how much work you put into these video for us. Considering how big this all is and how much is needed, I wonder why automotive analysts are not taking a closer look at supply chains and battery production far less new breakthroughs. Considering the time lines of the other OEM... I'm wondering how much they will be able to contribute by the time their factories are done and if they will manage to stay alive to improve scale if cost also don't come down on the raw materials they need for the current well known battery chemistries. Thanks Jordan.

I love these aggressively detailed videos.

thanks Jordan, as usual very comprehensive content. Looking forward to the deep dive.

“One more entree added to the menu” Jordan rocks on.

The long life is exactly what I would personally like for powering the house. Don't care for volumetric density or even weight density if I can just dig a hole in the garden and put a ton of batteries there. I just need long life and the bonus of smaller risk of thermal run-away.

Another insightful and enlightening video. You are the gold standard for unbiased information about batteries.

Thanks Jordan !! I'll only have to watch this 20 more times before I understand it all. The research you put in is amazing

This is the best video I've watched on sodium batteries and comparing to lithium batteries. Well done.

Wow, fantastic presentation! Well organized and clearly presented. But the background graphics tell a bunch of other interesting stories besides supporting the narration. I kept having to rewind and pause on the graphs to see fascinating content that goes beyond your story. Thanks for the great hard work putting together the supporting graphics.

I love your scaling pain index hilarious because it's so true

These projections are still great for lots of non-stationary use cases.Trains , boats, trucks ...

Thank you. Cogent and clearly communicated. (Neither surprise as it follows your precedent.)

I'm in 8 minutes and you have provided such a wealth of information. Thank you.

Thank you. Your research and production of these informative videos is really providing a great service to us.

Always so well researched & clearly explained. Thanks!

Excellent analysis, again. Thanks for laying it out for us!

Thanks for all your research and hard work

Well research and well reasoned. After all the hype videos I've seen from other content creators, this was refreshing. Thank-you.

I imagine one the main factors in the long term viability of any battery chemistry will be its recycability. This will greatly reduce the cost of materials long term and is the only way we can make them sustainable.

As usual, excellent video. I think Na based batteries around 190 to 200 Wh per kg could well serve cheaper cars with range of 300 km. This is good enough for many customers and will only accelerate the adoption of EVs. The only downside is the time to build new supply chains for the new chemistry.

Best and most level headed coverage on the topic/science/commercial reality (that most don’t know about or talk about), thanks!

Extremely informative. Very nice! Kudos. This is very informative, and excellent.

Awesome Video, technical and down to earth. Really like your comparison of heme and Chlorophyll.

Solid content

wow...excellent video Jordan. I learnt a lot. Thanks

Thanks alot. I’ve been waiting for this video and now my understanding of the limitations of recently proposed sodium-ion battery chemistries have improved. This has been very helpful. I’ll be looking closely at the sodium ion battery manufacturing industry for improvements in cost efficiency for the energy storage market over the long term. 😃👍

The right kind of complexity in this video. I wish you'd make all your videos like this one. I lose focus in your most complex videos. Thank you! 👏🙌

Sodium Ion seems like it's ideal for small cheap commuter EV's - you only really need ~150km range to cover the vast majority of daily commutes / drop kids off / grocery runs, assuming you're charging overnight every night. $50-70/kWh Combined with a high cycle life means these will be winners! It could very well be the tech that allows the mass market adoption of EV's!

Excellent as usual.

Very thorough. Thanks.

Well done Jordan!

beyond excellent video

your video is so well rounded. most of your opinion is based on actual data and fairly accurate. thanks for all the analysis you've done

Loved this video. I didn't know that about volumetric density difference of Sodium ion. I really want to emphasize something you said about how the sodium batteries can't use table salt and that's a big one people miss. Battery grade materials are not the regular materials and take only the most pure and specialy processed forms. This is why nickel is such an issue as many forms of nickel just can't be used. My two cents are that lifepo4 will make sodium less important in the future as by the time sodium is becoming more relevant, the lithium supply will be becoming less constrained and prices will come down leading to competitive LiFePO4 prices with what will be a much more mature and probably better tech.

Excellent video. I have now adjusted by expectations, unfortunately. I now understand why Tesla hasn't been publicly very interested in Sodium ion batteries, even for grid storage.

Excellent video.

Awesome content .. even if one does not agree with conclusion put across ..the quality is exceptional ..respect

Jordan, Excellent research and presentation. Sodium Ion is important and should increase cell availability, and reduce cost, towards the end of the decade.... unless another tech breaks thru happens - which is possible but unlikely. Thanks - the community needs you, Eamon

Excellent analysis

WOW! thank you sir for your outstanding analysis!

Thumbs up for using the "one does not simply" meme :'D

Again, Giga interesting !

Thank you!

This is a really great video! My only note: "bout" vs "bought". It looks like you did your own subtitles (which I greatly appreciate). Thank you!

Good video as always. at time 2:07. "The basic assumption for Na is that it is more abundant than Li". While it is more abundant than Li, there is plenty of Li for battery consumption. Yes, there are costs associated with Li production, and there are costs associated with Na production. But there is sufficient Li for EV batteries so I'm surprised that's the driving force for Na batteries. Maybe the driving force is cost (due to abundance, cost is lower). And I agree it'll probably be used first for energy storage, freeing Li to be used for EVs, except for those markets that want a "low range" around town car as you mentioned.

Note: In the video I said Sodium Ion will be poorly suited for vehicles. I didn't say it wouldn't be used in vehicles. Will we see sodium ion in vehicles? This actually requires its own video because there are half a dozen variables and those variables will evolve through time. That is, which country, which manufacturer, and which year do you want to know about? In the next 5-8 years, not for Tesla in the U.S. and Europe in my view. Also: How do you define vehicle? A golf cart is a vehicle. How will the CO2 profiles vary between the chemistries? How will the chemistry affect BMS systems? How will the energy density of sodium ion evolve over time? For Tesla, Sodium ion is unlikely this decade for vehicles because Tesla's priority is vehicles. Vehicles with LFP will be more efficient and require fewer kWh. So, they'll likely shift the LFP athat would be used for energy storage, use that for vehicles, and use the sodium ion for energy storage (as per Drew's comment about energy storage). This is exactly what's currently being done with Nickel and LFP. LFP is pushing Nickel out of the energy storage space and Nickel is pushing up the ladder to Cybertruck and Semi. So, could Sodium Ion be used for vehicles this decade? Yes Will it? Yes Will you drive one of those vehicles? Probably not, they'll be for low cost beaters in China and India who will take any scraps. This is exactly the way that LFP was used for 10 years before Tesla started using it. So, maybe you'll see Sodium Ion in a Tesla in 2030 if things go sideways. Will that likelihood increase with time? Maybe, maybe not. In the early 2030s there will be new lithium ion cathodes that drive down the cost of lithium ion so low that it could be competitive with sodium ion at much higher energy densities, plus huge volumes of recycled material will start to become available. So, I don't think anyone has the answer here on what chemistry will be dominant in the 2030s. It will likely be a mix of chemistries depending on the use case. Will it better for the environment to use sodium ion than LFP? No, because it'll be less efficient and the materials used for sodium ion will have higher CO2 emissions. As for the hybrid pack thing, I think it's kind of a BS gimmick like pack swapping. It makes more sense to use one chemistry that caters to the use case. I could be wrong, and my view could evolve, but that's my hot take. It generate unecessary complexity.

Great understanding

This answers many questions 🖖🏼

Thanks!

I thumbs up before watching the video.😀

Thank you. M

Thanks for another highly informative video on battery tech!! Do you have any content on flow batteries I would love to learn more about them!?

Thanks

Tack!

Excellent take! I am excited to see if sodium based BESS systems will become commonplace in residential homes as the price drops. This will become more important as utilities shift towards intermittent renewable generation. Subscribed!

Nice video

Sodium Ion, the new LIFEPO4. They will be ideal for storage applications in their current form. The future? Who the heck knows...lol

If I was a college professor your videos would be required watching.

Really nice that youre correcting the misconceptions :) What are the drawbacks /challenges of using MnO2 as cathode?

Good Video as usual. Even though I think you should just explain technologies and how they work. Predicting the future is always a very tricky adventure.

Before I watch the video, my previous understanding of the Sodium Ion battery ia that it is much more suited to stationary storage than the Lithium Ion battery. By utiising Sodium for stationary staorage it will allow Lithium to be used for transport where weight and mass becomes a more important issue. Besides which, there will eventually be a far greater requirement for stationary storage batteries than for transport. From this time perspective, the economic numbers will just fall out in the way that Sodium will be the major stationary battery, and Lithium will be best for transport. I'll watch the video and digest...

Professional and well done! As a supply chain professor, I 100% concur with your conclusion. Even if sodium is better and cheaper (and that is a big if) The supply chain will take a long time to mature to compete with lithium.

Much wow

Great title man! SO psyched to listen to this topic.

6:19 he said it! He said the thing!

Could sodium batteries help me ease the drought in the Mountain West? If California got their water from the ocean through desalination, the waste product could be sold to make sodium batteries. Desalination is expensive but if you could sell the ‘waste’ product, it makes the economics better.

CATL has begun production early this year

Excellent video. What is your background? Your knowledge is extensive!😊

I'd be more than ok with a low cost 180 mile EV. Especially if you can charge to 80% in 15 minutes, as CATL is saying. But if Sodium Ion batteries can replace lead acid reliably, then there's a huge market for them in everything from industrial backup batteries through to mobility scooters and golf carts. I mean, if you build out the UK national grid with batteries, it could be 100% renewable energy almost immediately, instead of being around 50% renewable. And energy costs would drop through the floor.

High powered educational content, pun intended.

Ha ha! I love your literary style. I haven't heard Deus ex machina or Cambrian explosion used in an EV video before.

Jordan, great work as usual. Question: Do you know what the Limiting Factor is on the John B Goodenough’s mew Glass Battery?

Hi Jordon, thank you for another excellent video. Do you think the latest work on Lithium-Sulphur batteries will allow for greater olume due to their material abundance if the newer discovery can be scaled successfully?

I do think something worth considering is that it will likely be a far easier task environmentally to source sodium than lithium, as it can potentially be extracted from sources such as seawater desalination, taking what would be a waste product and turning it to productive use, and would shorten supply chains which can take the sources in places where people already live.

He is right. I only put on 45lbs of muscle mass when I was 10 years old.

Good video. Regarding Li vs. Ni abundance does your analysis consider the feasibility of the extraction of known reserves? I am less familiar with Ni, but I have heard that there is lots of Li wrt long term EV requirements, but there is not a lot of easily recoverable reserves.

@TheLimitingFacor Just FYI, on mobile it looks like there is a thin red line along the bottom that RU-vid uses to indicate that video has already been viewed. My brain didn't even read the title or anything, I just saw the line and didn't read anything else because I assumed I already saw it.

I've been looking forward to your take on Na for months. Did you happen to find information about the charging speed of CATLs chemistry?

One correction, Li is less abundant than Ni. Ni comprises roughly 90 ppm in the Earths crust, while Li is only 20 ppm. If you have a source to say otherwise I'm interested to see it!

I looked back at the 20:00 mark and if the 226 current and proposed battery factories in China as opposed to 78 in the rest of the world combined, we see who is going to win. The rest of the world is never going to catch up with that advantage. Somewhat scary.

What is the nova processing method of Li...to get higher efficiency from ore.

Aluminium sulfur batteries had already reached over 300wh/kg. And pilot production is running. If this technology will be pushed a bit forward, it will become dominant battery technology

Chinese automaker JAC Group and tech company HiNa Battery teamed up to create an electric car powered by a sodium-ion battery, Just Auto reports.23 June 2023. According to July 19 2023 reports, leading power battery manufacturer CATL will begin mass production of sodium-ion batteries for vehicles in Q4 2023. Well before 2025. This industry is evolving at lightening pace.

The Ford Mach E base RWD/AWD Trim is now produced with a CATL LFP battery pack, 78 kWh in size (Munro got a pic of the label on the side of the battery), 72 usable. If a sodium Ion battery pack has a roughly 33% higher volumetric energy density than LFP, that means you can theoretically fit a 58.5 kWh sodium battery pack (around 55 usable) in a Ford Mach E, and a 60 kWh sodium pack in the slightly larger Model Y, around 57.5 usable. At the same 160 LFP efficiency level of a Model Y RWD, you can theoretically get 280 WLTP miles of range or 250 EPA Miles in a RWD Model Y with a 60 kWh sodium pack (57.5 usable), or with AWD about 250 WLTP miles or 225 EPA Miles. You're saying that we currently cannot get more than about 180 miles of range using the higher volumetric density of sodium ion. Am I missing anything or does sodium ion actually currently have the capability of 250 EPA Miles?

Reliance is a mighty conglomerate with huge cash flows from their refining and petchem complex. Think ARAMCO and SABIC scale. THey also own one of the largest telcom networks which need a lot of cells for 5G rollout. So makes sense to use Faradion cells.

I wanted to disagree with you heavily from the getgo, but ended up fully agreeing with you mostly. Good job. The only disagreement was semantics. Having a scaled up output of Sodium Ion batteries by 2025 would be very early in my book, while it seemed that you suggested 2025 is far away. Also CATL said that scalability should be easier as they can use most of the same processes of LFP production. Sure this still leaves a ton of issues as you said. I enjoy constructive sceptecism you displayed.

Your videos are the best, so much info & analysis. Can you expand on why Tesla is concentrating on vehicles vs grid storage. My guess is batteries are limiting factor, Tesla stands to make way more profit, deploy FSD & robotaxi network, increase demand for EV-specific Boring co tunnels. As you say, grid-tied batteries better as LFP or NaFe(Prussian). But grid batteries cycle daily save more CO2.

Jordan, what do you have on Lithium Sulphur batteries?

A question I have had for some time. What do you predict the cost of battery materials will be once an efficient recycling process exists and how will this affect chemical choices made by battery manufacturers?i assume we will hit a tipping point where expired batteries will suffice for new needs. I am also assuming we will be using raw materials more and more efficiently and thus requiring less material per kWh capacity being made.

By the time Sodium Ion ramps past the Lithium Ion capacity, we should be well into the first (second) round of recycling the Lithium Ion cells. I wonder how that will affect the cost differential?

Had to watch this again. Too much sodium hype at the moment.

Every storage battery for 4-8 hr storage of solar energy using sodium-ion means just that much more lithium available for uses where both gravimetric and volumetric energy density is important because currently there simply isn't enough lithium to support both a fully EV world and the short duration, high cycle storage needs to even out intermittent power sources like wind and solar. So I see LFP for shorter range EVs and sodium-ion for "power walls" to work with residential and small business roof-top solar as well as possibly large battery installations for load leveling and overnight power when intermittent sources like wind and solar get above about 30% of the total grid power. And as a side note, I think relatively low energy density, but relatively high power density along with a long cycle life, like LFP, are the perfect cells for plug in hybrids with a battery pack good for maybe 100 miles that is teamed with an onboard sustainer engine to extend the range to any desired distance by simply refilling the fuel tank for the sustainer. As a power and propulsion engineer, I wouldn't make the engine large enough to meet the total power needs of the vehicle like they are in nearly all of the current PHEVs like the Chevy Volt or Toyota Rav4 Prime. Instead I would size it to produce just enough power to meet the average power needs at a steady highway cruising speed with a little bit of margin. For trips longer than the battery-only range, the sustainer engine would be started at the beginning of the trip and the batteries would be held at around 50% SOC to allow them to operate at peak charge and discharge rate to both provide and absorb power to meet acceleration/hill climbing and regen braking/downhill grade speed control. The advantage over a large stand-along range extender is that the sustainer engine for an average sized car would only need to be 0.5-1.0 liter size class making 25 or so kW of electrical power and so represent less deadweight to get hauled around when the vehicle is running on battery only power. It also means that the sustainer engine could be highly optimized to operate at maximum power at a narrow range of rpms since it would only be driving a generator, not the wheels and so wouldn't need to run at broad range of speeds. This would mean the sustainer would be operating at a thermal efficiency somewhere in the 45%-50% range (www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/nissan-e-power-gasoline-engine-50-percent-thermally-efficient/). Conventional gas engines that are tuned to operate over a broad operating range usually top out at 30% efficiency. But most of the time a large gas engine is operating at the same 25 kW or so, thus at 10%-20% of peak power. At this very low power level the engine is only achieving about 15%-18% thermal efficiency. Thus a sustainer engine optimized to just produce the necessary steady speed cruise power can 3 or more times as efficient. And while the sustainer engine could burn fossil fuels and still dramatically slash total CO2 since most people drive less than 100 miles a day save for a few long distance trips a year and so the large percentage of the total miles driven would be using just the batteries with power coming from the grid. But the fuel used doesn't have to be pumping new CO2 into the atmosphere by using fossil fuels. Instead it could use carbon-neutral manufactured fuel like butanol, a 4 carbon alcohol, made from CO2 captured from the atmosphere, H2 from electrolysis of water, a little additional electric power combined together in the right pressure, temperature and catalysts all driven by electric power coming from wind, solar or other non-CO2 emitting power sources.

I'd be very interested in seeing a video about acquiring the needed materials for Na-ion battery production. Namely for Na₂CO₃, hard carbon and Prussian white. I wonder to what extent could mining be relied on for Na₂CO₃ production. For synthetic pathways using NaCl, the Solvay process looks promising, particularly in coastal areas with domestic limestone supplies (quite a bit of Europe, it turns out).

Wait, did this video just come out or has it been online for a week, and I just missed it?

I see the sodium sulfur batteries getting going in a few years.

Off topic but, the elephump in the room is still Tesla's concept of pulling electricity from earth's magnetic core, tested on the Eiffel Tower and Empire State, and crash-tested as the real power source for the Hutchinson field generators that brought the Towers down... Like to challenge someone to expand on that, but don't annoy the elephump 🙂