The First Mass-Production Sodium-Ion Pack, that’s the headline from CATL and Changan [1]. But what does that pack actually look like and deliver? Maybe first we should look at CATL’s sodium ion cell achievements and data.
CATL Naxtra Cell
- density up to 175 Wh/kg
- triple the discharge power of LFP at -30°C
- 90% capacity retention at –40 °C
- power delivery down to -50°C
CATL began sodium-ion research in 2016, investing nearly 10 billion RMB to develop nearly 300,000 test cells. With over 300 R&D personnel, including 20 PhDs, CATL has built a foundation for safe, high-performance, and scalable sodium-ion batteries.
Changan Nevo A06
The first mass produced sodium ion battery pack goes into the Changan Nevo A06 and it appears Changan will be deploying more vehicles with sodium ion packs [2].
- 45 kWh Sodium Ion pack
- 400km range
This compares to the A06 vehicle offerings with LFP based batteries:
- 510 km range trims:
- 51.48 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery
- 120 kW e-motor
- 400V platform
- Cells produced by Gotion
- 630 km range trims:
- 63.18 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery
- 210 kW e-motor
- 800V platform
- Cells produced by Gotion
If we assume the Gotion LFP cells achieve 190Wh/kg and the Sodium Ion cells are at 175Wh/kg the ratio of this multiplied by the LFP pack total energy gets us to ~47kWh
CATL 24V Naxtra
The 24V pack that CATL showed previously uses a 192Ah prismatic cell, much larger than the ~112Ah cell used in the Changan EV pack.
Smaller cells have a higher overhead of packaging and terminals etc and hence the gravimetric density is probably closer to 165Wh/kg for the ~112Ah EV cell.
However, vehicle battery packs are defined by the package space more than the weight and hence we should assume the same volume is available in both cases. Gotion LFP is ~430 Wh/litre for the blade format cell. Using this and the ratio of the pack total energy we can estimated the CATL sodium ion cell volumetric energy density to be around:
An interesting cell and pack. However, we need more data to really understand the capability of the sodium ion pack.
This post has been built based on the support of and sponsorship from: Quarto Technical Services, Eatron Technologies and About:Energy