Technology

Not bad for that battery's first outing

I've found people vastly overstated how much range they need. 99% of usage is in the city between home and somewhere else. 250km is perfect if the price is right.

Id like to add that there are different versions of the car, with the long range version being 302km range, and the battery mass to energy ratio is actually average compared to other batteries.

https://www.batterydesign.net/sehol-e10x-sodium-ion/

Wow that sounds very useable

People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types

Compared to other battery chemistry types using lithium makes tons of sense.

Lead acid type batteries like sealed and AGM are cheap but not power dense and do not offer the same discharge ability that lithium offers without damaging the battery (AGM fixes this but it's still an issue). Some lead acid batteries require continuous maintenance and vent toxic gasses which may be an issue depending on your encloser.

Nickel cadmium batteries solve a lot of issues that lead acid batteries are plagued with however they suffer from moisture intrusion issues causing self discharge. Nickel cadmium also suffers from memory effect which may completely ruin pour battery depending on your use. The elephant in the room with nickel cadmium is that it's banned in some countries including the European union due to how toxic cadmium is.

Now with lithium, it's a very energy dense battery which means you need less batteries to meet a capacity or you can fit more capacity into an encloser. There isn't any electrolyte or water maintenance you need to worry about. You can discharge and recharge as you wish with minimal damage. Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.

Lithium makes more sense when weight is an issue, for example when you have to carry the battery around. Sodium batteries could be good for grid storage if they can be implemented as scale cheaply enough, especially using common materials.

As some used to "gotchas" and things aren't free, I'm wondering what kind of shortcomings[1] these batteries have that others do not.

[1] for example acid batteries can push a lot of power, but they are heavy and contain lead and well... acid. The nickel cadmium doesn't contain lead and acid, but has memory so you should follow discharge them before charging again. They are lighter, but still not light. Lithium ion are light, don't have memory, but can explode, also lose life if they are kept fully discharged or charged for long periods of time. They also slowly discharge when not in use, mainly due to protective circuit needing electricity to run.

Do you have more details about that?

I'm expecting to see dual battery EVs in the not too distant future. A Sodium battery for the primary that gets the most charges and discharges which can be easy and cheaper to replace. Beside that a Lithium battery which would only be drawn from after the Sodium battery was exhausted. This way if you're doing shallow discharges for your "around town" driving then charging at night, and deep discharges for longer road trips where the energy density of Lithium shines.

Well, Sodium is the 6th most abundant element on Earth, so there's a lot more of it and the extraction process is probably far more environmentally friendly.

Since Sodium batteries are so new I don't think we have data on the toxicity, disposal or recycling avenues yet.

I don't find the source anymore, but i saw a lifetime analysis about sodium ion batteries. Overall they are slighly worse than lithium ion due to higher energy input required during fabrication, despite better mineral availability.

The most common Na-ion batteries use Prussian Blue.

Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with grain of salt.

Well yeah, it's sodium.

Normally you're right. It seems like every day there is a new revolutionary battery tech with no real estimate when it'll ever be in use. But in this case, according to the article, deliveries will start next month which means they're already in production.

It's a salt in battery