And -40°F!
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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Since lithium prices crashed, sodium batteries' main advantage of being cheaper has vanished.
They're also lower capacity for the same weight.
The best application is where cold might be an issue, and weight isn't. So, for large storage. Or, where cold is always an issue, such as in the Arctic.
Sodium is basically ubiquitous and sodium batteries are much easier to produce, which is not to be neglected amid rising geopolitical tension. They are also a lot safer to handle. The technology has improved to be ready for the market in almost no time and is still improving rapidly.
They won't be in your smartphone or wireless earbuds where energy density is key, but for large storage grids or maybe even cars, they might replace LiPo or LiFePO4.
I refuse to get solar on my house until I can store the energy myself, hopefully this will be available for that soon.
Yep, lithium can be tricky to obtain if there are political or other issues. OTOH as you say, sodium is everywhere.
Lithium is everywhere. It's just no one gave a shit until recently.
It's mostly too hard or too expensive to extract AFAIK.
Unlike sodium, which can be extracted pretty much anywhere in the world without the worry of depleting your source if you have a coast
Efficiency drops significantly as you go faster than 50mph, so they would be more practical for city cars that don't do a lot of time on the highway.
sounds like a great use case for a city bus or battery powered tram.
It's so stupid that we ditched electricity powered trams and buses through wires.
Yes and no. Electric vehicles are good, though it's not exactly a safety feature to have exposed wiring.
Vancouver BC has had exposed trolley wires for many decades, no major mishaps. Sometimes drivers have to jump out and reconnect the charge arms, which puts them in the road for half a minute.
Can you point out the actual, demonstrated risks?
Why do you assume economies of scale don't work on sodium ion batteries? We are just launching the first commercial products, which indeed is a hard time for new technology and sodium does need to pass the hurdle of "get to scale", but sodium has the potential to be dirt cheap once fully scaled and realized.
Isn't it just the economy of scale keeping lithium battery pricing this low? Sodium could be cheaper to produce if it reacher the same scale because it requires less rare materials.
There isn't enough lithium available on this planet to power a technological civilization. No such problem with abundant sodium. Also, I'd rather not have a lithium chemistry battery powering my home, because it's a fire hazard.
Any battery holding kilowatts of energy is a fire hazard. Pretty sure a gas furnace is a fire hazard.
There isn’t enough lithium available on this planet to power a technological civilization.
of course there is, and everyone is assuming lithium won't be recycled.
As usual, the opponent of recycling things is simply "it's too expensive"
The ultimate failing of the future, as always, is current reliance on capitalism.
Why recycle when you make more money by blowing up the planet and ripping out the good stuff?
I think a big part of it is that we are still in early innings with EVs and storage, how many have reached end of life? The volume is going to increase substantially, and that will drive recycling to be more economical
Main advantage of sodium batteries: no volatile components.
I'm willing to take a capacity hit if the battery can survive a hit or puncture without exploding.
Yesterday I spent time cleaning junk drawers to find an expanded & bloated lithium ion battery pack that was still holding a charge. Went straight into a fireproof battery bag.
Can't wait til that's a thing of the past.
Also, sodium is far more sustainable plus abundant compared to lithium.
to find an expanded & bloated lithium ion battery pack
Intrusive thoughts: "go on, poke it with a knife. See what happens firsthand"
Then throw it in a full bathtub!!
This is assuming an economy of scale doesn't make sodium batteries cheaper once again because of the ease of working with industrial quantities of sodium as opposed to lithium
My Lithium solar batteries can't charge today while the sun is out shining brightly, because it's below freezing and I don't have battery heaters installed. They're in an outdoor shed so they can't burn down my house.
I wonder how difficult it would be to make a heating system directly powered by solar panels. It doesn't have to be enough heat to make a person comfortable in a t-shirt, but just enough to allow normal battery operation.
I'm sure that depends on a lot of factors like shed insulation/wall facing direction, etc, and burying the battery bank would probably be more effective.
I've learned a lot from reading RV forums and stuff like that. It's common to install DC-powered battery heating pads that run on relatively low watts to keep batteries warm enough to charge. I'll probably do that too.
To keep a person warm, you'd probably need more power like at least 250-700 watts to run a heat lamp or small space heater. But that is easily doable with solar and batteries now.
They also have much better cycle count iirc.
175Wh is within striking distance of LFPs. That's really promising if they can start mass producing them for EVs
Battery costs for EVs has dropped >90% since 2012. Batteries are not why they are overpriced.