Hyperdrive
Electric Vehicle Battery Makers Test a Future Without Lithium
A test vehicle unveiled by Chinese carmaker JAC has the battery world buzzing about sodium-ion cells.
The Sehol E10X.
Source: JAC Group
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A year and a half ago, China’s CATL put on a flashy event to make an announcement significant enough that Zeng Yuqun, the founder and chairman of the world’s biggest battery maker, served as emcee.
Zeng, who had just passed up Alibaba’s Jack Ma in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, revealed that CATL was working on battery packs that would use lithium-ion and sodium-ion cells. While sodium is more abundant and offers potential safety benefits over lithium, the latter is dominant in EV batteries. Lithium-ion chemistries offer superior energy density, enabling drivers to travel further between charges.