• AtlasBarfed 2 days ago |
    The true EV revolution is the sodium ion battery, because it lays the path for a billion "city car" EVs.

    In terms of the American market:

    150 wh/kg sodium ion (which should pack at 90% with Cell-to-Pack since it is much safer than Lithium ion NMC chemistry) should be about a 250-300 mile Toyota Corolla type car.

    200 wh/kg, which CATL is soon to come, should enable 350-400 mile cars.

    Sodium Ion cells should be about 40% or less the cost of lithium ion NMC, and I'm guessing even less with really big economies of scale. That should equate to a fundamental price advantage of EV vehicles over ICEs in drivetrain cost, hopefully to the tune of $5000 or so.

    But what I think the Sodium Ion cell enables is a $10,000 city car of a couple hundred miles of range, which is particularly important to China, India, and heck any urbanized area, plus a whole host of mopeds, kei cars, scooters, etc, all being able to economically drop the ICE, especially the two-stroke variants.

    I hope to see these enter the lawncare markets too, converting what are now premium/luxury products like eGo which are more expensive than combustion tools, to ones that are cheaper than them fundamentally.

    The entire tool market is still hideously expensive for extra batteries, it is obvious the companies are profit taking.

    The only thing better would be Sodium-Sulfur which would hopefully double density, but we shall see.

    • aucisson_masque 2 days ago |
      Bonus points is less reliance on lithium provider like China to feed the electric car revolution.

      In current diplomatic state, that matters a lot.

      • metalman 2 days ago |
        It can and will go the other way, China can scale, bigger and faster than anyone. China is also free from, ahem, "market stuborness",and quickly adopts whatever is best,now. 9 billion people, which state of diplomacy was it mattering? where?,with who? What matters now, is the abiliy of nation states to show sustainable development, and the ability to respond to mega disasters assosiated with climate change and geopolitical shenanagens. And sodium batteries are going to be very usefull in keeping the lights on and people moving where they need to go, and do that without regard to the price of oil.
        • toomuchtodo 2 days ago |
          China is going to kill oil with their manufacturing capacity.