BYD Setting up Sodium-Ion Battery Gigafactory (30 GWh)

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For all of the hype round non-lithium-ion battery chemistries previously decade, nothing has actually been aggressive with the king of batteries. Till now?

We’ve been getting intrigued by sodium-ion batteries for some time. Effectively, you possibly can say going again 9 years, however for EVs and from established firms, it’s actually been the previous two to a few years. In 2021, Steve Hanley coated CATL’s potential sodium-ion batteries. In 2022, the U.S. Division of Power put out a bullish word on longer-lasting sodium-ion batteries. On the finish of 2022, Steve wrote that BYD (the biggest plugin car producer on the planet) may begin producing sodium-ion batteries for manufacturing electrical autos in 2023, and adopted that up with an analogous story and different sodium-ion battery information in April 2023. Now issues are actually getting actual, although. BYD has begun development on a 30 GWh sodium-ion battery manufacturing unit in China.

“On the morning of January 4, the 2024 city-wide main industrial undertaking development kick-off assembly and the BYD (Xuzhou) sodium-ion battery undertaking kick-off occasion have been held within the Xuzhou Financial and Technological Improvement Zone,” a Google translation of a information replace from a Chinese language firm, New Power Suppose Tank (NETT), said.

BYD is investing 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) into the brand new battery manufacturing unit. “After the undertaking is accomplished and put into operation, it is going to inject new momentum into the development of a brand new power system demonstration metropolis in Xuzhou,” NETT provides.

These batteries will reportedly be utilized in electrical scooters and “micro autos,” as these are seen by BYD to be the perfect purposes for sodium-ion batteries in the meanwhile. “BYD’s subsidiary Findreams Battery signed an settlement with tricycle big Huaihai Group to assemble the Xuzhou sodium battery plant on November 18 in Shenzhen.”

If you happen to’re stunned that these sodium-ion batteries gained’t be used within the BYD Seagull, as a result of that was presupposed to be the primary manufacturing electrical automotive utilizing such batteries, you’re not alone. Nevertheless, the Seagull is already in the marketplace and is utilizing standard lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. We’ll see if it will get sodium-ion (Na+) batteries sooner or later, however for now, it appears these batteries are simply destined for smaller electrical autos. Keep tuned. I feel one factor we will actually rely on is extra sodium-ion battery information in 2024.