The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January - Sodium-ion batteries have lower density but are cheaper and perform better in cold weather
engadget.com
The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January - Sodium-ion batteries have lower density but are cheaper and perform better in cold weather::JAC Motors, a Volkswagen-backed Chinese automaker, unveiled the first mass-produced EV with a sodium-ion battery through its new Yiwei brand. Although sodium-ion battery tech has a lower density than lithium-ion, its lower costs, simpler and more abundant supplies and superior cold-weather performance could help accelerate mass EV adoption.
Assuming these numbers aren't massaged like Tesla's, 252 km (157 miles) isn't a terrible range. Not something you'll want to road trip across the country with, but suitable for most city commuting.
Combine that with that company that switches out batteries and this is a great solution
Solution for what
Driving.
Is it tho
For EVs, these batteries are better for the environment to produce and to dispose of, and if you're able to replace them every time you go to a recharge station you'll never have a battery die because it won't be in your car long enough. The batteries keep rotating until they die and then they get taken out of rotation and disposed of.
bit of a problem here:
if batteries are kept in rotation until they die... you'll most likely experience one dying on you. probably multiple times during your life.
the rest holds up just...how would you avoid a battery dying on you, if you're still using the same system? you're not getting a new battery every time you swap, you get an old battery that's been sitting in the station recharging.
it's gonna die on someone, might as well happen to you...
There are ways to calculate a batteries remaining life, usually you'd have a chip dedicated to tracking all of that. They can tell you a battery's history, health, estimated charge capacity etc. So if the station detects a batteries life is low or it's marked as chaged but it's charged significantly below it's initial capacity it can be taken out of rotation and inspected and fixed/disposed of if need be.
Personally I wonder, once we have interchangeable batteries, if it will be more common to have several smaller, shorter life span batteries that add up to a certain range. That way the recharge station only has to change out the batteries with a lower charge, and even if the battery system trips up and you get a borked battery your range would be slightly reduced not completely gone or halved
I drove a leaf for 3 years and it had 80 to start with and ended around 67. At the end, it was a pain, but didn't notice until around 70mi range. Somehow, 75 would get me from home, to the airport, to work, and back home again with room to breathe. At 67, it was nail biting.
To the point, 150 is probably good for quite a lot of people.
For me that would be pushing it. That is about as far as I drive to my dentist. A little traffic, or battery degradation. That said any charging station a long the way would fix that.
Assuming this company is not filled with dumbasses thinking air cooling the battery is a good idea like in the Leaf, the range will likely hold up much better.
So true. That leaf was a nice car, but that degradation was terrible.
Liberal use of the word "first" but ok marketing team
When a headline like this says first I think it either means first test vehicle and it’ll be years before it’s available to the public or first brand, which is what I’d rather be hearing about. Article starts off saying “the first mass-produced electric vehicle (EV) with a sodium-ion battery”. If they buried that I’d say it was a clickbait headline but this way it seems pretty up front they’re just shortening for length. In my opinion. 🙂
Fair enough. The actual car I was thinking of apparently did run on lithium, too, so it was a dumb comment.
All good, I’m just happy to see more innovation making its way to the public realm.
Yeah well, technically all EVs before the invention of lithium batteries were without lithium batteries, but are there currently any worth mentioning in this context?