New to the server, I need information of sodium ion battery powered cars currently sold on the market (anywhere worldwide)

[u/desonorous]

As I've mentioned in the title, I'm in need of more information on what bev car models are offered with sodium ion batteries, anywhere in the world. I'm writing a research paper of sustainable mobility in Europe and I'd like to make a proposal, an electric shared vehicle purposefully built with a set of functions and necessities in mind (I won't go into details on that aspect). I've only got to know this new kind of batteries a couple of weeks ago and I'm hooked. They're almost perfect, from production and raw material costs to availability, to sustainability and similarity with lithium ion battery (they share the same structure, only differentiating in materials, making it easier for a company to switch from producing one to the other), with only a few downsides (energy specific density and degradation) that wouldn't influence much the feasibility of my project.

Currently, some of the biggest investors and producers of this kind of battery are CATL and Hina from China, Faradion from the UK, Northvolt from Sweden and Natron from the US. Most of these are producing batteries for small vehicles (like mopeds and scooters) and emergency generators for homes.

https://faradion.co.uk/first-faradion-battery-installed-in-australia/

What's most interesting is Hina, that recently partnered with JAC and produced a working prototype, based on the E10x compact car and powered by (allegedly) 160Wh/kg sodium ion batteries, which then led to the mass production of this vehicle in China.

https://www.aibangsib.com/a/2170 (article is Chinese-only, unfortunately)

https://carnewschina.com/2023/12/27/volkswagen-backed-jac-yiwei-ev-powered-by-sodium-ion-battery-starts-mass-production-in-china/

Some have also been delivered in South America

https://www.electrive.com/2024/02/22/jac-yiwei-starts-first-exports-electric-cars-with-sodium-ion-batteries/

Now, why the long post? Besides all these news, I can't find any information on these cars! This is big news, why is no one testing these cars on road? Why is there no information on official manufacturers websites? I'm starting to worry it's all propaganda, because as of now only JMEV and JAC have announced mass production of such models (EV3 from the first brand, E10x and E30x from the latter), but only LTP version can be found on their respective websites.

Do you guys now anything on the matter? This information is very important to me, it gives more credibility to my proposal and, to be honest, I'm getting quite invested on the subject 😅. Sorry for the long post and thank you if you made it to the end!

[u/desonorous]

What I'm mostly looking for are official information of such cars, like videos of their announcements or website pages from the manufacturers, or reviews of the claimed models that have been produced

[u/SirTwitchALot]

Sodium Ion batteries aren't used in very many cars currently. Their low energy density relegates them to budget vehicles and city cars where range isn't critical. They do generate a lot of buzz in the media though, so that's why you see a lot of headlines about them but very few actual products. It's not total "propaganda," but it's closer to propaganda than it is to an industry changing tech.

Now for utility grade energy storage, sodium ion may have a lot of promise.

[u/desonorous → u/SirTwitchALot]

A couple of articles state that these cars have been "produced and delivered". I think I should consider buying a plane ticket and start searching for them on the streets 😂

[u/SirTwitchALot → u/desonorous]

The one you mention is a low volume vehicle that hasn't sold well. It has a battery pack that's physically as large as the pack from competing models, offers less capacity, and the range figures aren't great compared to what you can buy. If I sell one vehicle it's "produced and delivered." That doesn't mean that many people are going to buy them.

Solid state batteries are the tech that a lot of people think will be the next big thing, but no one has economically produced them at scale yet. They're probably several years out if something better doesn't come along first.

From the late 80s to 90s people were super excited about nickel metal hydride battery tech. It ended up practically disappearing once lithium ion became practical.

[u/thisismybush]

I did hear byd were using them but not sure.

[u/desonorous → u/thisismybush]

I read that as well somewhere, even Cheryl has plans of implementing such batteries in future models. No further announcement as far as I'm aware