| And keep in mind the Nickel-Cobalt Lithium ion chemistries are responsible for the "battery fire" Tesla stories. So the Nickel-Cobalt batteries require a lot of cooling and safety systems. So this reduces the PACK level density to 60-70% from the lofty cell densities. So 240 wh/kg nickel cobalt chems drop to 160-180 at pack level. LFP and Sodium Ion do not have such issues. They are inherently safer, so the Pack densities are potentially 90-95% of cell density with good design. And to emphasize, CATL is putting into PRODUCTION in 2023 160 wh/kg sodium ion. The other trick is to mix lithium and sodium ion cells in the same pack. So you do half at 160 wh/kg sodium, and half at 210 wh/kg LFP (LFP is hitting that in 2023 as well), then you get 185 wh/kg effectively. IMO this Sodium Ion announcement marks when/where the barrier to electrifying 80-90% of consumer transportation AND allow India and China to get their own cars. It should just be a factory scaling issue now. IMO this means the BEV drivetrain will be fundamentally cheaper than the ICE drivetrain by 30% in possibly 2-3 years. ICE cars will simply not be price competitive. The BEV will accelerate better, smoother, more reliable, be cheaper in maintenance, more torque/towing ability, AND it will be cheaper when you buy a new car. That's for a 300 mile fast-charge electric car, with roadmaps to 400 mile with 200 wh/kg sodium ion. Again, if sodium sulfur hits 2x to that (the research papers say 3-4x) in 5-10 years, that means the number of cells and cost to make the car and vehicle weight all drop that much more. You'll have 500-600 mile range cars that possibly cost half of what an ICE drivetrain would. |