What is the true independence of sodium batteries for electric vehicles

Sodium batteries arrive, leaving in the air, what is the autonomy of the sodium battery, and these are cheaper than the current lithium batteries.

What is the shelf life of a cheap 30 kWh sodium battery?

The electric BYD Seagull, which was presented at the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, has two battery versions:

• 30kWh sodium battery version
• 38kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery version

The sodium battery version is the first to be factory-installed in a BYD electric vehicle, with a range of up to 305 kilometers, according to the Asian CLTC approval cycle, which turns out to be more “generous” than the WLPT certification cycle used in Europe.

On the other hand, the LFT version has a range of 405 kilometers, according to the same smoothing course!

We therefore conclude that the sodium battery has a lower storage capacity than the LFT battery, 3 0 kWh versus 38 kWh, giving an autonomy difference of only 100 km. It was easy to do these calculations, as there is the same electric vehicle with both versions of the batteries.

Head to head: sodium battery vs. LFP battery

Comparing the two batteries, sodium is much cheaper, but when comparing in terms of autonomy, what can the two batteries offer?

Despite being cheaper, the autonomy of the sodium battery is slightly lower, around 10.16 km / kWh.

While the LFP battery already guarantees 10.6 km / kWh. Remember that these data belong to the same electric vehicle model, differing only in the batteries used. So there is no interference from variables like engine efficiency or aerodynamics!

In conclusion, the new sodium battery loses only 0.44 km of autonomy per kWh of storage. Which indicates that it has a good energy density!

We emphasize that the energy density of this battery has not yet been disclosed, only that BYD uses “blade” cells patented by the manufacturer, which can thus provide a greater energy density.

In addition, BYD Seagull is based on e-platform 3.0 compatible batteries”cell to bodyintegrated directly into the bodywork, allowing for a better use of energy volume, and therefore better intensity!

This data is the most promising yet available for sodium batteries.

Being cheap, it leaves the starting price of the BYD Seagull at around 10,500 euros in China. In other markets, there is still no information about the possible retail price!

And we still have to approve the autonomy of these batteries for the WLPT cycle!

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