The sodium battery, which was once prepared to be loaded in cars to combat the upward movement of lithium iron phosphate**, was finally used in micro electric vehicles this year. Jiangqi Group's flower fairy is such a miniature car with sodium batteries. The battery is made of 32140 sodium-ion cylindrical cells made of Zhongke Hai Na **, and the battery pack capacity is 232kWh, CLTC cruising range reaches 230km, and the power consumption level is close to 10kWh per 100km.
The price of this car and the relevant configuration of the model have not yet been announced, and it should be in a state of not being open to the public, and the new car has only announced key information such as battery specifications and mileage. For the industry and consumers, more attention should be paid to the application of sodium batteries in this car. Coming to 2024, when the battery-grade lithium carbonate ** is only 100,000 tons, what should we think about when we look at the application of sodium batteries?
Will sodium batteries become mainstream in the market as expected?
The starting point of sodium battery is installed in the industry, not that it has better performance, but more cost-effective, this starting point has a premise, is that when the lithium carbonate is 600,000 tons of the industry, the industry is more inclined to use sodium batteries to replace lithium iron phosphate batteries, ternary lithium batteries, these battery packs with higher costs, at this time sodium-ion batteries are very necessary.
Sodium battery advantages, low cost, wider operating temperature range, not afraid of extreme cold, not easy to burn, etc.
The most direct point is that the cost is lower, which is the most attractive point for car companies and battery manufacturers. How much cheaper can it be?At present, the cost of sodium battery cells of the head battery manufacturer is almost 700 yuan kWh, and the system (battery pack) may be about 800 yuan kWh. The lithium battery system is 750 yuan kwh, and the current sodium battery cells and battery packs are higher than those of lithium batteries, and they are about 50 yuan more expensive per kwh.
However, the ability to reduce prices is there, and the industry has just started a few years, and it still needs to be scaled up to achieve the best downturnThe timing of the downward exploration is probably around 2025, and the downward exploration capacity is 500 yuan kWh for battery cells and 640 yuan kWh for group battery packs, which is much cheaper than lithium batteries. Take the 50kwh battery pack as an example, lithium battery**3750,000 yuan, sodium battery**3About 20,000 yuan (the above are self-purchase cost prices).
Idealized development, sodium batteries can reduce the battery pack under the same specifications by about 14%.
* Low is one of its advantages, but in the field of pure electric passenger cars, the ** of the battery is often not the only reference standard, and it is not that the battery is cheap and has the necessity and ability to get on the car. It also has to refer to more criteria, such as energy density, how much range can be run.
When the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries can reach 140-180wh kg, sodium batteries in the same period can generally only have the performance of 120-140wh kg, and the top ones can only reach the upper limit of 160wh kg (but it is difficult to make) sodium batteries. Moreover, from another point of view, the amount of electricity stored in the unit volume of sodium batteries is much less than that of lithium batteries without optimizing the energy density, which means that passenger cars need more space for installation. At this stage, the energy density of sodium batteries is about 15% lower than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, but it has not been completely hit. In other words, the current sodium battery, in terms of performance and cost performance, has not reached the premise of large-scale loading.
Therefore, the companies that started to prepare sodium batteries around 2022 now have two schemes, sodium batteries are used as energy storage batteries, and lithium iron phosphate + sodium batteries are mixed on the car.
Let the sodium battery pick up the girders alone, and the difficulty is that low energy density and high energy density cannot coexist at this stage. The reason why JAC's sodium battery car has not yet been sold to the outside world may be due to the best considerations;After all, 23The 2kWh battery pack can travel about 230km, and the range performance is not bad, but perhaps the pricing will be embarrassing.
However, sodium batteries, even if they are 14% lower than lithium iron phosphate batteries, cannot become the mainstream.
Previously, combined with the soaring price of lithium carbonate in 2022 and the arrival of 600,000 tons of horses, car companies and companies have announced the timetable for sodium batteries to be launched in 2023 or 2024. Looking back now, this timetable is obviously to speed up the progress of sodium batteries on the car, and it is not really a certain breakthrough in research and development. For example, BYD has also thought about the sodium battery on the BYD Seagull, but there has been no action yet.
Why have car companies and first-class businesses slowed down the pace of getting on the car?
For two reasons, lithium carbonate is the main factor, and the highest demand for sodium batteries is also the peak of lithium carbonate, the purpose is to find a replacement. But now, it is not easy to find that sodium batteries want to replace lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the performance and cost performance of the start-up are not as expected.
At this stage, the energy density of sodium batteries has not reached a high level, and the highest upper limit of sodium ion is 200Wh kg, and now it is just starting to start about 140Wh kg, which depends on the application of cathode materials. But the difficulty now is that if you do high energy density, for example, 155-160wh kg energy density can be achieved, but the number of cycles is only about 1000 times, which is half of lithium iron phosphate batteries and one-third of ternary lithium batteries. Therefore, we can see that there are not many models that use the entire sodium battery pack this year, and it will definitely not be widely popularized.
Theoretically, sodium batteries have not yet reached a level that can be popularized, and both ** and performance are.
The approximate dosage is 1:2, the amount of lithium-ion batteries in a battery pack is 1, and the dosage of sodium-ion batteries is 2. On the one hand, it can give full play to the advantages of high power and low temperature of sodium-ion batteries, and improve the fast charging and low temperature performance of battery packsOn the other hand, lithium-ion batteries can make up for the low energy density of sodium-ion batteries at this stage.
In the case of running through this mode, after the ** chain of sodium battery is matured, we may usher in the whole battery pack of sodium battery on the car.
What kind of car is best for sodium batteries?
Cars with more than 100,000 yuan will basically not be used, and the battery should be divided more carefully in the future. For example, a 100,000-dollar sodium battery has a maximum energy density of about 160 Wh kg, about 2,000 cycles, and a battery pack of about 30 kWh to achieve a range of 300 km. These cars will have the following characteristics, energy density, battery life is average, but the charging is fast and the price will be cheaper than the lithium iron phosphate battery car, purely for the marginal model design, the use of the scene should be the frequency of the car is not high urban car, the main market in the third and fourth tier cities.
If the sodium battery really meets the above standards, the mini car with a price of 60,000 yuan and a 30-degree lithium iron phosphate battery pack will be about 50,000 yuan after replacing the battery pack of the same specification. The price of 10,000 yuan is very attractive for the mini car market.