The first sodium-ion battery production car rolled off the assembly line, and a new outlet is coming?

Although pure new energy has now torn off the label of "policy product" and entered thousands of households with lower car costs and better performance, it is still undeniable that there are still further opportunities, such as the cost of buying a car.

It is not without reason that new energy vehicles are relatively more expensive. Taking compact cars as an example, if this car uses traditional fuel power, a less powerful engine with a general-performance gearbox, the cost price is mostly not more than 20,000 yuan. But if the car is a pure electric power, the price of the powertrain is several times higher, which ranks first is the power battery, the current compact pure electric vehicle is generally equipped with a capacity of about 50kWh battery pack, according to the current ternary lithium battery market price of 1100kWh/rmb to calculate, the cost of photocell procurement will exceed 50,000 yuan. Therefore, continuously reducing the cost of batteries through structural innovation, material innovation, and technological innovation is a compulsory course for today's major power battery manufacturers, and it is also the top priority to promote the development of the new energy vehicle industry.

At the end of this year, the new energy vehicle market is much more lively than before, Wenjie, Zeekr, and Xiaomi are all grabbing headlines, and the outside world has not paid attention to the fact that Jiangling New Energy, which has never been high-profile, has also brought a new car, that is, Jiangling Yizhi EV3 Youth Edition. Although the new car still looks familiar, the "internal organs" have a new look, and the new car is equipped with a sodium-ion battery from Funeng Technology, which is also the world's first mass-produced car equipped with a sodium-ion battery.

It is worth mentioning that although this is the first appearance of sodium-ion, it is no stranger to the automobile circle, and in the eyes of many people, the best way to reduce the price of new energy vehicles is to replace sodium-ion batteries. It is true that many power battery manufacturers have aimed their guns at sodium-ion batteries as early as a few years ago, and some see it as a major trend.

From concept to product landing, the era of sodium-ion batteries is coming?

Compared with mainstream lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries do have many advantages.

It should be noted that both are mineral resources, but sodium and lithium are very different. Compared with lithium, which has relatively limited resources, sodium is much more abundant in global resource reserves, and even from a certain level, sodium is inexhaustible, and compared with lithium, the mining difficulty and cost of sodium are lower. Therefore, sodium-ion batteries are regarded as an important breakthrough in reducing battery manufacturing costs and an important choice for sustainable development.

For users, with the advent of sodium-ion battery cars, it obviously means that cheaper electric vehicles are coming.

However, the price of the comfort of the JMC Yizhi EV3 Youth Edition is 58,800 yuan, which is 10kWh less than the battery capacity of the lithium battery model, and the range is 69km less, but the guide price is only reduced by 4,000 yuan.

In Brother Yi's view, this is not a reason to completely deny the sodium-ion battery, as the first generation of products, the sodium-ion battery still has a lot of room for improvement, with the upgrading and iteration of technology, cheaper is undoubtedly the trend. Just like lithium-ion batteries in the past, the price was as high as 3000kWh/rmb 10 years ago, but now it is only 1/3 of the previous one, so it is not difficult to see that the starting point of sodium-ion batteries is already very good compared to lithium-ion batteries.

The advantages of sodium-ion batteries are not only cost:

For example, high-temperature stability. At present, many users who buy electric vehicles are most afraid of battery fire, and lithium-ion batteries to ensure the safety of the battery almost rely on the external physical structure to prevent thermal runaway by blocking, but sodium-ion batteries are different, good stability is its innate gene, if you add a "armor" on this basis, it is tantamount to double insurance, theoretically it can say goodbye to thermal runaway to a greater extent.

Another example is low-temperature stability. The southern electric car is running all over the street, and users in the Northeast talk about the electric color change, the root cause is the weak cold resistance of the power battery, an electric car is clearly marked with a range of 400km, but in case of sub-zero weather, it is a luxury to even be able to run half of it. According to the data released by Funeng Technology, the overall discharge rate of its first-generation sodium-ion battery at -20 °C exceeds 90%, so it is likely that sodium-ion batteries will become a powerful weapon for electric vehicles to attack cold areas.

There is no doubt that the advantages of sodium-ion batteries are very obvious, therefore, it has also been recognized by major battery manufacturers, in addition to Funeng Technology, CATL has also made phased progress, and the products have also been listed on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, but at the final mass production juncture was preempted by Funeng Technology.

Since the sodium-ion battery is so good, wouldn't Funeng Technology, which was the first to be mass-produced, want to "take off"? In the future, it must not wrestle with "Ning Wang"? Don't be in a hurry to get excited, although the first mass production of sodium-ion batteries is a big benefit, but it is also relatively limited, because sodium-ion batteries are not a "good student".

The advantages of sodium-ion batteries are obvious, and the shortcomings are also obvious.

For example, the mass is larger. Because it should be noted that the atomic mass of lithium is 6.94, it is a light metal, although sodium is also a light metal, but the atomic mass is more than 3 times that of lithium, up to 22.99, which means that the same size of sodium-ion batteries is much larger than lithium-ion batteries, which has different degrees of impact on battery layout and energy consumption. Perhaps this is also the reason why the sodium-ion battery capacity of the first sodium-ion battery of JMC Yizhi EV3 Youth Edition is 10kWh less than that of lithium-ion batteries, and it may not be able to fit it.

At present, the energy density of the sodium-ion battery that has been put into production is 140-160Wh/kg, which is really general compared with the mainstream lithium-ion battery, taking the soft pack scheme of CATL and Guoxuan Hi-Tech as an example, its energy density has reached 300Wh/kg; kg, and even the blade battery, which has almost the lowest energy density with structural safety as its selling point, has an energy density of 180Wh/kg for its second-generation products. Obviously, sodium-ion batteries are still far from mainstream products.

Another example is that there are fewer cycles. Limited by material characteristics, the cycle life of sodium-ion batteries is relatively low, especially in the case of high-voltage charging and discharging, some experts say that the life of sodium-ion batteries is 1/3 of lithium-ion batteries, of course, this data has not been supported by specific data. However, according to the information previously released by CATL, the number of cycles of its first-generation sodium-ion battery has reached 3,000 times, if so, then this achievement can fully cover the whole life cycle.

In fact, it can also be seen from the above two obvious shortcomings that sodium-ion batteries still have a long way to go before they can truly become a product that can compete with lithium-ion batteries or even replace lithium-ion batteries, at least in the short term, they cannot form an overwhelming advantage over the latter.

Of course, for power battery manufacturers and new energy vehicle companies, although they can't just look at the advantages of sodium-ion batteries, the rhythm is disrupted, but they don't have to be completely bearish, ignore it, rationally, since the product has advantages, try to expand the advantages, since the product has shortcomings, we will continue to improve the root cause of the shortcomings, learn from each other's strengths to go further. It has taken more than 10 years for lithium-ion batteries to get to where they are today, and in the long run, it is very possible that sodium-ion batteries will become a second route in addition to lithium-ion batteries.

In addition, CATL has also proposed an AB battery solution, that is, a mix of sodium-ion batteries and lithium-ion batteries, which may also achieve the effect of complementing each other's strengths to a certain extent.