Recent technological advances and investment announcements suggest dynamics are shifting for sodium-ion batteries
Sodium-ion batteries are emerging as a new player in battery markets, offering opportunities to diversify battery chemistries and supply chains at a time of rising global demand for electric vehicles and energy storage. Developed in laboratories since the early 1980s, sodium-ion batteries operate on the same fundamental principles as lithium‑ion batteries – which currently dominate the market – yet their path to commercialisation has been markedly slower.
While lithium-ion batteries entered commercial use in the 1990s – with the first electric vehicles appearing in Japan in 1996 – sodium-ion batteries reached vehicle applications much later, with the first sodium-ion powered electric car introduced in China only in late 2023. The first battery storage system using sodium-ion batteries was installed a few years earlier, in 2019 in China. However, in 2025 their total global production was less than 1% of that of lithium-ion technologies.
Recent technological advances and investment announcements suggest that this dynamic is starting to change. CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, released its second-generation sodium-ion batteries and has confirmed plans for their commercial-scale deployment across multiple sectors starting in 2026. BYD, the second largest producer, began construction of its first sodium-ion battery plant in January 2024, targeting applications in electric vehicles, grid-scale storage and industry. Hina, a smaller Chinese battery manufacturer and the first to power an electric vehicle using sodium‑ion batteries, also released an advanced sodium‑ion battery designed for electric cars last year. (....)