The Chinese company CATL was the first to introduce a sodium-ion battery.

The popularity of electric vehicles has led to an increase in demand for key components for their production, in particular cobalt. Therefore, the manufacturer began to look for alternatives to the three main technologies:

  • nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA),
  • nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM),
  • lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.

The Chinese company CATL has created a power supply that combines lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. The advantage of the new type of batteries is that they work more reliably in low temperatures and provide a faster-charging speed, but they are inferior to LFP batteries in energy density.

The company said it plans to build a supply chain for these products by 2023.

Now engineers are working on such an unusual solution, how to integrate the battery into the frame of an electric vehicle: this will increase the range.