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Last Updated on: 20th May 2025, 10:24 am
US President Donald Trump has been losing his battle against EVs, and he’s about to begin losing even biglier now that new sodium-ion EV batteries are emerging on the market. Some researchers note that “salt batteries” are not quite ready for prime time, but other stakeholders — including industry leader CATL — are already laying plans for mass production.
Losing The Battle Against EVs
The rising demand for zero-emission mobility goes beyond the nice idea of preventing a catastrophic climate crisis. EVs are a better fit for the connected, electrified lifestyle of the 21st century, they offer more opportunities for convenience, they are more useful for weathering power outages and climate-connected emergencies, and they are more adaptable to the needs of fleet managers, among other advantages.
The specter of range anxiety dominated the early years of EV marketing, but that was just a red herring wrapped in a blanket of self-serving, fossil-fueled fear mongering. After all, the batteries in gasmobiles provoked plenty of anxiety on their own, long before all-electric cars hit the road.
The year 2015 is particularly instructive. Electric cars accounted for a vanishingly small number of vehicles on the road back then, so when AAA reported a “record-breaking” 32 million driver rescues that year, with battery problems among the leading causes, they were talking about the conventional lead-acid batteries used in gasmobiles, not the lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars.
The Sodium-Ion Battery Difference
Having done the hero’s work of ushering in the EV revolution, lithium-ion battery technology is beginning to make room for new formulas that offer a more abundant and accessible supply chain, reduce the reliance on toxic inputs, and achieve both cost and safety improvements.
That’s easier said than done, particularly in the field of sodium-ion energy storage. Sodium sits right under lithium on the Periodic Table, but it is much heavier, and that is a key disadvantage for mobility applications. Just ask the Swedish firm Northvolt, which was on its way to hooking up its sodium-ion EV battery with the Chinese firm BYD before declaring bankruptcy last year.
Still, other sodium-ion battery innovators have kept the torch burning. That includes the leading global firm CATL, which introduced its first sodium-ion batteries in 2021. Last month, CATL also burned up the Intertubes when it announced a suite of two sodium-ion batteries ready for full volume production by the end of this year.
Sodium Batteries For All EVs, Eventually
For all the attention CATL received last month, the company’s new sodium-ion battery is not designed to compete directly against Li-ion in all EVs. Of the two versions set for mass production this year, one is the “Naxtra 24V Heavy-Duty Truck Integrated Start-Stop Battery.” Start–stop is your clue that the battery is designed to be compatible with fuel efficient hybrid trucks, in which the diesel engine shuts down when the truck is temporarily stopped.
With the Naxtra 24V, CATL is aiming to compete against lead-acid batteries in the truck market. “It reduces total lifecycle costs by 61% compared to traditional lead-acid batteries,” the company says of the new battery. “Compared to lead-acid batteries, it is more efficient, eco-friendly, and economical.”
CATL also plans to mass produce a passenger car version of the Naxtra formula later this year, but again, Li-ion technology is not the primary target. “CATL’s Naxtra passenger EV Battery achieves an energy density of 175Wh/kg, the highest among sodium-ion batteries worldwide, and comparable to LFP batteries,” CATL advises, referring to the lithium-iron-phosphate battery formula.
A Work In Progress
Sodium-ion batteries still need some tweaks around the edges before they can compete head-on with Li-ion batteries, particularly in terms of EVs and other mobility applications. For example, a research team based at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in India recently reported a “super-fast charging” sodium-ion battery capable of charging up to 80% in just six minutes. The battery can also withstand more than 3000 charge cycles.
The team achieved their breakthrough by deploying nanoscale particles wrapped in a carbon coating, and by doping the anode material with aluminum. “These tweaks made sodium ions move faster and more safely, enabling both speed and durability,” Jawaharlal Nehru Centre reported.
“What makes it especially exciting is that it not only supports rapid charging but also avoids the fire and degradation risks of traditional batteries,” they added.
Exciting or not, the researchers caution that “more development is needed before these batteries hit the market.”
You can say that again, says a team of researchers based at Stanford University. Their assessment of the state of sodium-ion battery technology, published in the journal Nature in January, suggests that salt batteries are not ready to shove Li-ion aside from mass market EVs today, but they could soon. The team outlines several pathways to cost-competitiveness within a timeline of the next 10 years or so.
“Our modelled outcomes suggest that being price advantageous against low-cost lithium-ion variants in the near term is challenging and increasing sodium-ion energy densities to decrease materials intensity is among the most impactful ways to improve competitiveness,” they concluded.
Keep an eye on a new sodium-ion battery consortium spearheaded by Argonne National Laboratory for signs of advanced research here in the US. The $50 million project launched in November last fall, but the Trump–Musk budget axe has been chopping away at the national laboratory network. Whether the new program survives or not is anybody’s guess.
More EVs For The USA
Meanwhile, over here in the US, more people are buying more EVs, regardless of the president’s fossil-friendly energy agenda. That is to be expected. Trump has successfully traumatized a generation of federal workers with the gleeful assistance of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, but he is losing bigly in his war against the energy transition, the offshore wind fight being just one example.
Rising activity in the EV charging area is a strong indication that industry stakeholders expect EVs to continue their upward sales trajectory in the US, Trump or no Trump. Leading players in the gas station and convenience store market, for example, are prepping themselves to welcome a flood of new EVs onto their premises, and new wireless charging technology is lifting the convenience factor far beyond the capabilities of the fossil-fueled mobility devices of the olden days.
Don’t take anything for granted, though. The Republican majority in Congress is pushing a “big, beautiful” federal budget bill that threatens thousands of clean energy jobs and hundreds of factories. If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. Better yet, find your representatives in Congress and tell them what you think.
Photo (cropped): Researchers continue to work on a new generation of sodium-ion batteries, leading to the next generation of affordable EVs (courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory).
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