| Out the gate, sodium ion advantages are so significant that unless there is some surprise show-stopper it will likely become the dominant energy storage medium. Crustal abundance up to 1000x that of lithium - pretty much every nation has effectively unlimited supply, it's no longer a barrier or a geographically limited resource like lithium. No significant damage going down to 0V, can even be stored at 0V - much safer than lithium which gets excitable once out of its prefered voltage range. Cold weather performance down to -30C - northern latitude users don't have as much range anxiety in the winter. Basically, the only problem I see is that companies that have made significant long-term investments in lithium could take a big hit. Countries that banked on their lithium reserves as a key future resource for will have to adjust their strategy. Lithium batteries will likely still have a place in the high performance realm but but for the majority of run-of-the-mill applications - everything from customer electronics to EVs to offgrid storage - it's hard to see how sodium-ion wouldn't quickly replace it. |
I don't doubt that sodium ion has a place... but whether it takes over as the dominant battery type for portable applications strikes me as very dependent on the future of lithium extraction. It seems like a place that has a lot of room to grow more efficient and thus more competitive on cost.