Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

Sounds competitive with Lion and possibly cheaper? What’s the catch?

Less energy density, can't find any information on power density, faster charge cycle degradation (i.e. maybe a third of the lifespan of lithium chemistries), lab results should always be treated with some skepticism.

The spider plot at the bottom of the page shows the "long life" axis being the same as LFP, which tend to have much better durability than most other lithium ion chemistries. So if that's not marketing fluff then degradation shouldn't be much of an issue.

Energy density does seem to be the main weakness that they're acknowledging.

density still lower than li batteries at 300wh/kg will probably never overtake li ion batteries. But sodium is much more widely available than lithium, and it doesn't need cobalt.

300wh/kg is not where we will ever see any conventional lithium battery chemistry get.

Best mainstream cells cars are made with today are all around 200wh/kg.

240wh/kg NCM cells are there, more or less widely available, but they are almost the same stuff with higher rating, and lower cycle life. Manufacturers basically nudging digits.

If they reach same 200wh/kg, along with equal cycle life to LFP, it can be big.

If they can get them comparable in weight and power this could be neat for size size reasons. For the same weight but ~1/4th the size is interesting.

yeah, I think the big information is CATL is industrializing NA ion batteries and specifically calling out supply chain partners to do so. Its one thing to have a lab result, another thing to industrializing, forming upper stream supply chain and its own manufacturing capacity. The latter will need serious cash, time and human resource investments. CATL is a public traded company, margins, revenue is crucial. They also have pretty good lithium ion NCM and LFP batteries, and are researching solid state Li batteries so they know a thing about battery chemistries. They also in pretty serious competition with other battery makers and supplies big name car brands. So for them to throw their own cash at this new technology means they see long term advantages. I think time will tell what it will end up with.

The second anyone starts to order it in sizable quantities like for a utility installation or auto production run the prices spike and don’t recover until they hit competitive scale (best case) or some yet unknown scientific breakthrough (worst), all the while trying to catch up to LiIon.

The hard science part for the first generation seems to be done, what now follows is scaling up the production. CATL targets 2023 for mass production. As the same production processes for Lithium-ion batteries can be used this doesn't seem unrealistic.

This is a feature, not a bug. If CATL can make a huge margin, that will incentivize them to scale much more rapidly, which will be good for everyone.

I thought lithium is a light element so the Lion batteries are lighter. But sodium might be useful for non automotive applications like the power grid batteries.

Isn’t lithium actually a small part of the battery?

Yeah it's like a few percent by weight. Most of the weight is the anode and cathode materials. That's tantalizing because in theory there is a lot of room for improvement.

Compare with lead acid batteries where most of the weight is the lead.

> Sounds competitive with Lion and possibly cheaper? What’s the catch?

All previous works on sodium batteries showed very low cycle lives for both cathodes, and anodes.

Since they are not giving it out now, I guess that's it. And this may well be why they keep nailing solely on the point of it being operational at -20C° (which is a big thing for any lithium battery, still)

Another thing I will note is them specifically comparing this to an LFP battery.

CATL been very late to the LFP party, especially for the high-end automotive LFP cells.

Companies which made a bet on LFP early are now coming with 200+wh/kg cells, which is already bigger than commodity automotive NCA, something which Foxconn (CATL) makes most money on.

This is a kick below the waistline move to at least throw doubts about business expansion for LFP makers. Currently, 200wh/kg LFP cells are just only now hitting the market, and these LFP cell manufacturers are still making the lion share of their revenue, and profit on storage class, and low-end cells.

If LFP manufacturers believe the new chemistry can wipe out their current cash cow, they will think twice about putting money to expansion in automotive cells.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com