Article | Reporter Shen Chunlei from China Science Daily
On January 5th, Zhongke Hai'na Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongke Hai'na) announced that it has officially delivered the mass production of the "Flower Fairy Sodium Electric Edition," a pure electric vehicle jointly launched by Zhongke Hai'na and JAC Motors, a new energy vehicle brand owned by Jianghuai Automobile Group. The vehicle has a range of 252 kilometers and is equipped with sodium-ion cylindrical batteries supplied by Zhongke Hai'na, with a starting price of 59,900 yuan. Previously, Funeng Technology announced that it had launched the sodium-ion battery A00-class pure electric vehicle Jiangling Yizhi EV3 (Youth Edition) in cooperation with Jiangling Group. The vehicle has a range of 251 kilometers and a starting price of 52,800 yuan. It can meet the diverse needs of the younger generation for daily commuting and intercity travel, among other scenarios. Earlier, Chery Automobile and CATL collaborated to launch the Chery QQ Ice Cream, which starts at 30,000 yuan. The key to this affordable electric vehicle lies in its use of sodium-ion batteries. All signs indicate that the era of "sodium batteries" for electric vehicles is coming. In 2022, a research report released by Zhongjin Company projected that China's lithium supply will face a "hard" shortage before 2030, and the development of sodium-ion batteries is a superior solution under resource constraints. "Sodium-ion batteries have lower average energy consumption than lithium iron phosphate batteries, reducing costs by 10% to 30%, and they have significant advantages in low-temperature performance. In the future new energy electric vehicle market, sodium battery models will occupy a place in third- and fourth-tier cities," Tang Kun, the CEO of Zhongke Hai'na, told China Science Daily. "The application of sodium-ion batteries is not limited to vehicles, but also includes energy storage stations and others," he added. floral fairy sodium electric version electric vehicle. Image provided by the intervieweeAnupgrading Battle of "Sodium" against "Lithium"?
On January 11th, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) released the December 2023 and full-year auto production and sales data for 2023. In 2023, China's new energy vehicles continued to grow rapidly, with a market share of 31.6%, ranking first globally for the ninth consecutive year. CAAM predicts that China's sales of new energy vehicles will reach 11.5 million units in 2024. On December 28, 2023, Xiaomi's first car, the Xiaomi SU7, was officially unveiled. Previously, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a notice on the "Catalog of New Energy Vehicle Models Exempted from Vehicle Purchase Tax," which stated that the basic version of Xiaomi SU7 is equipped with a 73.6 kWh ferrous phosphate battery with a range of 668 kilometers, while the high-end version of Xiaomi SU7 is equipped with a 101 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery from CATL, with a range of 800 kilometers. It is understood that the mainstream power batteries for current new energy vehicles are lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries, but the price of lithium has fluctuated frequently in recent years. Market statistics show that the price of lithium carbonate, which is the raw material for batteries, rose from 100,000 yuan/ton before August 2021 to about 600,000 yuan/ton at the end of 2022, and then dropped back to about 100,000 yuan/ton at the end of 2023. The sharp increase in prices reflects the rapid depletion of lithium resources. Global lithium resources are unevenly distributed, and the exploitable reserves are limited. The International Energy Agency predicted in 2022 that if relying on existing lithium mine production projects, the world will face a nearly 50% demand gap by 2030. According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, 22.3% of global lithium deposits are located in Australia, 52.7% in Argentina and Chile, while China's lithium resources account for only 7.1% of the global total. Instead of being controlled by others, it is better to take a different path. In recent years, sodium-ion batteries have attracted much attention in the market due to their low material costs, wide distribution of resources, and easy acquisition. "As the raw material for sodium-ion batteries, one ton of sodium carbonate costs 2,000 yuan, which is much cheaper than the lowest price of lithium carbonate," Tang Kun explained. "Compared with lithium iron phosphate batteries, sodium batteries have a capacity retention rate of 92% in low-temperature environments of minus 20 degrees Celsius, reducing the battery's range decay during winter. In addition, sodium-ion batteries can be charged to 80% in 15 minutes, which is much faster than lithium iron phosphate batteries." So, can sodium-ion batteries replace lithium-ion batteries and take a place in the new energy vehicle market?
"Someone Has to Be the First to Try Crab"
Looking back to the late 20th century, the development of sodium-ion batteries almost paralleled that of lithium-ion batteries. However, research found that sodium-ion batteries have low energy density and require larger volume and weight compared to lithium-ion batteries to achieve the same energy storage effect. This has led to sodium-ion batteries being neglected in consumer electronics markets with higher energy density requirements, resulting in their development being far behind that of lithium-ion batteries.
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