"CATL’s “Naxtra” sodium-ion batteries achieve an energy density of up to 175 Wh/kg, the company said, putting it on par with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries."
Useful, but not a "breakthrough" in energy density. More like another good low-end option.
Isn’t the benefit that it is durable and has much higher charge/discharge amperage limits?
A battery that can charge as fast as you can pump electricity into it, as many times as you want opens up a lot of possibilities.
E.g. a car that has a 200 mile range and a 5 minute charging time is way more useable than a car with 300 miles of range that takes an hour to charge.
I've driven a car that had about a 200 mile range (small fuel tank) and it's annoying on a long drive, given that you don't want to push it to the extreme but start looking for a fuel stop somewhere around 1/3 tank remaining. So you end up stopping to refuel every 2-3 hours. Still better than a 1-hour recharge every 300 though.
Sodium is a lot more abundant than lithium. Scaled up this could be a breakthrough in battery cost per kWh.
lithium cost $22/kg. 1 KW/h is 0.2kg lithium in 5 kg of batteries that costs $100 retail on AliExpress. So it isn't about lithium price. It seems that just manufacturing and delivering a 1kg of low-mid-complexity stuff comes about $20/kg. (just for example - a car weights 1000-2000kg and costs $30K)
Amusingly, $20 to $30 per kilogram is about what we pay for groceries here in Australia from the supermarkets when averaged over a few bags of mixed items.
USD / kg?
huh? shipping 10t of metal via ocean to europe is ~3k if you want it fast, less if it's batched with other deliveries. (I would know. I've purchased some)
>> low-mid-complexity stuff
> metal
One of these things is a manufacturing input (metal), where as the other (stuff) is a manufacturing output.
Steel mills are on a different scale altogether. And anyway, the wholesale price of steel to manufacturing industry is around the $2.50 / kg mark for plate and hot rolled sections, but you have to be buying it by the hundreds or tonnes up qualifying for those prices.
either the OP is a poorly worded statement or I lost the plot, we're talking about shipping cost here? the price of lithium is a very big factor for battery pricing?
The benefits are cold performance, durability and potentially price in the future.