By Kate Yuan

(JW Insights) Apr 17 -- Chinese battery giant CATL’s newly developed sodium-ion batteries will be first used in EVs made by Chinese automaker Chery (奇瑞), CATL announced on April 16.

Instead of lithium batteries, sodium-ion batteries will break through resource bottlenecks and is a cost-effective choice, CATL said in a poster, without giving further details.

CATL and Chery will also jointly establish battery brand ENER-Q, producing sodium-ion batteries, M3P batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries, and ternary lithium batteries. These batteries can be equipped on pure electric, plug-in hybrid and other models with a life span of 8 years with 800,000 kilometers.

The energy density of the first-generation sodium-ion battery cells has reached 160Wh/kg, and it only takes 15 minutes at room temperature to charge to 80%. The discharge retention rate reaches more than 90% even in low-temperature environments as cold as -20°C. The system integration efficiency can reach over 80%, according to CATL’s previous press conference.

CATL, which released its first sodium batteries 18 months ago, is keen to achieve mass production as they are a much cheaper alternative to lithium batteries, whose development is restricted by limited resources in the country. However, CATL is unlikely to produce them on a large scale until 2024 or 2025 due to a lack of raw material suppliers, a company source said.