Back in March 2022 I made a video looking at a new sodium ion battery technology being
developed by the Chinese battery behemoth CATL and I came up with an uncharacteristically confident
prediction... 'if I was a betting man I'd say we may well be seeing electric vehicles powered by
sodium ion batteries within the next few years'. Well, not for the first time and probably not for
the last, I was wrong. It turns out that EVS using sodium ion batteries won't start hitting
the markets in a few years time after all, because they've already arrived, right now, in
early 2023. We didn't just get one major battery breakthrough announcement this month though, we
got three of them, all from different high volume manufacturers, all of whom come at the problem of
battery efficiency and longevity from a slightly different angle, and all of whom look like they
could catapult the electric vehicle industry up to the next level of market disruption.
So... another slightly utopian piece of marketing or a proper set of game changers?
Hello and welcome to just have a think. I know, I know. You've seen countless videos about
breakthrough, game changing, market disrupting battery technologies in recent years. Many of them
have been produced by me to be fair, so I'm just as culpable as anyone else on the YouTube thingy
bob. But not covering those technologies wouldn't be much help either would it? So you know,
suck it up. Leave a pithy admonishment in the comments section if you like. I always enjoy them.
Anyway, what are these fabulous new technologies Dave? I hear you cry. Well, I've given you one of
them already haven't I? It's sodium-ion batteries. No no! Don't switch off! Bear with me. The real
breakthrough here is that these things have now been showcased in an actual road car. It's not
a big road car I'll grant you. But that may be no bad thing. Not everyone wants a huge electric SUV
do they? A point that's regularly made by Robert and Jack over at the Fully Charged Show. Oh,
and did I mention that I'll be appearing on a couple of discussion panels at their forthcoming
UK Fully Charged Live Events? I didn't? Well...run VT! 'I just wanted to let you know that I'll be
taking part in a couple of discussion panels at both of this year's Fully Charged Live UK
shows which are taking place in Farnborough from the 28th of April and Harrogate from the 19th of
May. And just to encourage a few more of you good folks to come along and hear what I've
got to say for myself, the nice people at Fully Charged have allocated this discount code exclude
exclusively for the viewers of the Just Have a Think channel. You can use this code to get
yourself 20% off the ticket price for either event by visiting the Fully Charged Live Show website,
the links for which are all in the description section of this video. So, I look forward to
seeing you there. Should be good'. Anyway, as I was saying, anyone who regularly watches
the fabulous Fully Charged Show will know that the market is crying out for small inexpensive
electric vehicles that can do normal journeys, like a daily commute, without blocking everyone
else's view of the road and requiring two parking spaces when they arrive at their destination.
This little thing is the creation of the JAC group over in China, with some considerable
technical input from none other than Volkswagen. They're actually not using the CATL sodium ion
battery that I mentioned earlier. They're using a similar technology from a little-known Chinese
outfit called HINA Battery Technologies. It's probably worth a quick recap on why sodium
ion technology might be a good replacement for lithium ion. Lithium and sodium are part of the
same group of highly reactive elements known as The Alkali Metals. Lithium has of course become
the default technology of modern day energy storage, but lithium is not all that common.
The only really large reserves are in Argentina, Chile, Australia and China, and for reasons I'm
sure you've read about in the news, the price of lithium has gone completely interstellar
recently. So battery makers are doing what all good engineers and entrepreneurs do. They're
working on alternative solutions to the problem. Which is where sodium comes in. There's more than
a thousand times more sodium in the Earth's crust than there is lithium. It's a constituent part of
sodium chloride which is of course salt. It's actually mostly made from soda ash, but in any
case as the sixth most abundant elements on the planet it's pretty easy to get hold of.
The president of Hina Battery Technologies, Li Shujun, reckons sodium ion batteries could
eventually slash the overall production cost of an entire electric vehicle by about 10 percent.
The basics of lithium and sodium ion batteries are very similar with electrodes on either side
of an electrolytic solution with a separator membrane in the middle. During a charge cycle
the lithium or sodium atoms release electrons from the cathode via an electrical wire to the anode on
the other side while the lithium or sodium ions travel across the electrolyte to reach the same
destination. When the system is connected to a device everything moves in the opposite direction
and the electrons power the device. The two main drawbacks of sodium are energy density and weight.
The HINA battery has an energy density of 140 Watt hours per kilogram, which is a lot lower than NMC
Lithium-ion batteries that use nickel, manganese and cobalt. But that's really not an issue in a
little car like this designed to scoot around town or do relatively low distance journeys. It's also
not a problem for things like electric scooters or bicycles and motorbikes or even for buses which,
let's face it, are not on this Earth to break any land speed records are they? And energy density is
even less of an issue when it comes to utility scale stationary storage solutions, which can
frankly be as heavy as you like because they’re not going anywhere at all are they? All they have
to do is provide electrons to balance the grid, which is what expensive lithium-ion batteries do
at the moment. Replacing them with sodium-ion could free up the more energy dense lithium
technologies for applications where their higher density is really necessary. Any, I digress…This
JAC Sehol E10x test vehicle has been fitted with a 25 kilowatt hour battery that can
apparently do 250 kilometres or about 150 miles, and can be fully charged up in about 15 minutes.
The current Sehol E10x model that carries normal lithium-ion batteries costs six
thousand eight hundred dollars, so if they can get this new sodium-ion version anywhere near
that price point then it could be a winner. Not to be outdone though, on the 18th of April 2023
another Chinese automotive giant BYD launched their own sodium ion powered electric vehicle
called the Seagull. It's a good looking five-door hatchback with a 30 kilowatt hour battery a
claimed range of 305 kilometres or 190 miles and a price tag of $11,600. BYD clearly believes
in sodium ion technology because they say they plan to fit these batteries into all their sub
$30,000 models. And these big players are dealing with a seriously accelerating market over there in
China as well. Swiss bank UBS recently forecasted by 2030 three out of every five new vehicles sold
in China will be electric. And just for reference that'll equate to about 16 million units a year.
The world's largest battery maker, CATL, will no doubt play a big part in the sodium ion
revolution. It was after all their technology that I originally featured in my video last year. But
they're not a company to rest on their laurels, and while sodium ion will take some time to reach
market maturity, CATL have been looking at ways to make existing technology work better. The result
of that research is something they call the Qilin battery. CATL actually unveiled this technology
back in 2022, telling us it heralded the Advent of EVS with a thousand kilometres of range.
Essentially what they've done is to manufacture blade cells that are stacked vertically on a
common plate. Each cell is separated by a second thinner plate filled with a coolant. CATL says
this configuration allows for far greater thermal control, and one of the main benefits of that is
that they can really ramp up the charging speed without exploding the battery, which is a nice
feature if you're the car owner! They reckon they can get zero to eighty percent charge into one of
these things in just 10 minutes, but perhaps the boldest claim the company makes is that
their new battery architecture has increased the volume efficiency by 72 percent. That translates
to a gravimetric energy density of 255 Watt hours per kilogram for their standard NMC cells and 160
Watt hours per kilogram for their LFP technology. The first vehicle fitted with these cells is this
fairly ugly article, known as the Zeekr009 MPV, but it'll be its smaller sibling, the Zeekr 001
that'll offer the thousand kilometre range. Now if all this talk of Chinese dominance in the EV
market is something you find slightly unnerving then either, you know, get used to it... or here's
a fantastic game-changing breakthrough technology from the good old US of A. This offering comes
to us from a 600 million dollar, New York Stock Exchange listed company called Amprius.
it's a Lithium-Ion pouch cell that replaces the graphite anode with a 100% Silicon. Silicon has
the highest capacity for storing lithium among all the elements in the periodic table, but it's
got a nasty tendency to swell up as it receives lithium into its structure. That causes distortion
and cracking that can significantly shorten a cell's operational life cycle. It's a problem that
apparently stopped Tesla in their tracks when they tried to develop a similar technology. But after
more than a decade of development, Amprius say they've overcome this challenge via a unique anode
configuration that doesn't use any conductors or binders or other matrix supporting materials.
What they've achieved is a highly engineered web of pure silicon nanowires with its own internal
porosity that allows lithium inside without wrecking the structure. Each nanowire is directly
attached to the current collector which optimizes the movement of electrons out into the electrical
circuit. The folks at Amprius say they've achieved an independently verified cell density of no less
than 500 watt hours per kilogram, which is more than twice the density of a Tesla 4860
cell and about 75 percent higher than Ford's pouch technology. That kind of cell density will have a
huge impact on vehicle range and on lifetime of electronic devices. But the primary focus for
Amprius right now is actually providing power for the aeronautics industry. The company is actively
engaged with more than 30 customers including Alto Airbus, Air Environment, BAE Systems, Teradyne
and the US Army, all of whom have been able to validate the Amprius cell performance numbers.
So let's cut to the chase. Are they on the market right now? Yeah, no. No they're not. Well at
least not this 500 watt hour version anyway, although to be fair to Amprius they have been
in commercial production since 2018 and their 450 watt hour battery has been available since 2022.
Amprius say the 500 watt hour version will be available for shipment this year and although
we don't have costs yet Amprius tell us they're currently building a 775,000 square foot facility
in Brighton, Colorado with a five gigawatt hour manufacturing capacity due to come online at the
beginning of 2025. Plus their headquarters, R&D lab and pilot manufacturing facility all just
happen to be located in Fremont California, right next to Tesla's Gigafactory. So you know, just
saying! And the price is big, not just in aviation but in automotive as well. Those two markets
combined are projected to require about a hundred billion dollars worth of battery power by 2025.
So there we are then folks. Three very encouraging developments. And despite my somewhat flippant
and sarcastic approach to this week's video, in all seriousness these are precisely the kinds of
scientific and engineering developments that are going on all over the world right now, and which
should be giving us average citizens a little bit of hope that we're moving ever faster to the sort
of Market disruption tipping points that people like Tony Seba and his colleagues at RethinkX have
predicted for the middle of the 2020s. These technologies on their own won't solve all our
problems of course, but specifically they will accelerate the move away from internal combustion
engine vehicles, and that is most certainly a major imperative in the green transition.
Thanks, as always, to the channel's fantastic Patreon supporters, and I must just give a
special shout out to some folks who've joined recently with pledges of $10 or more a month.
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Victor Lacotte, Lauka Specht, Bob Haywood, Patrick Dickinson, Guy Markey,
David Griffin, Andrew Williams, Zachary Webb, Øyvind Skogvoll, and Rebecca Bishop.
And of course a big thank you to everyone else who's joined since last time too.
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absolutely for free by subscribing and hitting that like button. As always, thanks very much for
watching. Have a great week, and remember to just have a think. See you next week.