ROME – New year, new batteries. There are many innovations expected in 2024 for electric car batteries, which together with the development of the charging infrastructure represent the crucial element for the mass diffusion of battery-powered vehicles. Contrary to expectations, however, we will not see the arrival of technologies that perform better than the current leading solution (lithium ion battery with NMC, Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt cathode) in terms of energy density, i.e. the ability to accumulate energy with weight and overall dimensions reduced as much as possible.
What will spread will be lower cost solutions, which do without materials characterized by difficult sustainability control in the production chain. This is the case of the emerging LFP (Lithium-Iron-Phosphate) technology, already widespread in many models and which does not require the expensive Nickel, nor the controversial Cobalt, extracted mainly in mines where the condition of the workers has been denounced several times as critical.
And the real novelty of the year, represented by the arrival on the market of sodium ion batteries. Announced last year by Catl and Byd, two Chinese giants in the production of accumulators at a global level, the latter of which is also a car manufacturer, have instead just debuted in China on board a Yiwei brand car belonging to the group Jac automotive company, 50% owned by Volkswagen.
© 2020 Steve Fecht and General Motors. This image is protected by copyright but provided for editorial and social media use. The use of this image for advertising, marketing, or any other commercial purposes is prohibited.
The first sodium batteries to actually arrive at dealerships under the Jac Yiwei brand are produced by HiNa Battery, a young high-tech Chinese company that even has sodium in its name (Na is in fact the chemical symbol of the element) and was created thanks to researchers of the Institute of Physics of the Beijing Academy of Sciences. Further models will arrive during the year, also in other areas of the world and thanks to the sodium batteries that will be introduced by Catl and BYD.
Also in Europe, the Swedish Northvolt presented its sodium batteries, communicating an energy density of 160 Wh/Kg, decidedly competitive compared to Chinese production. The announcement represents a sign of hope from a geo-economic point of view, given that both the lithium ion LFP technology and the upcoming sodium ion one are today dominated – if not practically monopolized – by Chinese producers.
The near future of batteries, therefore, is made up of improvements in lowering the cost, in the differentiation of materials – with less dependence on resources considered critical such as Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt – in increasing the intrinsic safety of the systems and in better behavior at low and – above all – high temperatures. All characteristics in which emerging LFP and sodium technologies improve performance compared to nickel-manganese-cobalt lithium-ion batteries. What does not improve per unit of mass or volume of the single cell is the storage capacity, therefore one of the elements considered crucial by many potential customers.
If the complete system, however, does not become lighter or miniaturized, it manages to remain competitive in terms of weight and dimensions for travel ranges of 250 to 500 kilometers per full charge, thanks to the slimming down of everything that has been there so far around the cells. This is what the cell-to-pack system is used for, which is the basis of the Byd Blade, Catl Qilin, Zeekr Golden Brick batteries and many others which will follow the same path of compactness in the direct assembly of the accumulator cells even in the car chassis , to avoid unnecessary metal.
For customers, this trend should translate into a lowering of the prices of electric cars and better management of fast recharging by accumulators, especially thanks to the batteries’ greater tolerance towards high temperatures.
The other element that will not fail to keep us company in 2024 are the announcements relating to further technological leaps ahead, such as the arrival of solid-state batteries and the replacement of graphite with silicon in the anode. In these two cases, energy density will once again be the center of attention, together with ultra-fast charging. For solid state batteries Toyota, Nissan and Volkswagen – through the results of the subsidiary QuantumScape – are on the road to industrialization and the arrival on the market is currently dated between 2027 and 2028. For the replacement (although perhaps not total) of graphite with nanostructured silicon, the most striking announcement is that of the Israeli Storedot as part of an agreement with Polestar, which could arrive on the market with a model as early as 2027.