The shortcomings of sodium batteries were handed over to battery swap stations by CATL

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The shortcomings of sodium batteries were handed over to battery swap stations by CATL

Automobile financial report

2026.11.12 08:57

· From overseas

Full text 4352 words

Text | Automotive Financial Report

More than 2,500 battery swap stations have been built. CATL’s promotion target for sodium battery vehicles this year is only 10,000 to 20,000 units.

On November 10, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, talked about the next step for sodium batteries in Shanghai: speeding up the entry of sodium batteries into the passenger car market with the help of the chocolate battery swap network covering about 200 cities. By the end of the year, the number of battery swap stations will exceed 3,000.

Sodium batteries are still more expensive than lithium iron phosphate at the moment. CITIC Construction Investment calculated in April this year that the battery cell cost of leading sodium power manufacturers was about 0.47 yuan/Wh, and that of lithium iron phosphate was about 0.38 yuan/Wh, a difference of nearly 24%. For a 45kWh battery, the sodium battery costs about 4,050 yuan more for the battery cell alone.

Lithium is also getting cheaper. On November 10, the average spot price of battery-grade lithium carbonate calculated by Mysteel was about 91,900 yuan/ton, which was more than 80% lower than the high of nearly 600,000 yuan/ton in 2022.

A new, more expensive battery meets an old rival that's getting cheaper. It’s hard for car companies to have the incentive to pay more for it.

CATL’s approach is to organize demand first. Through the battery swap network, it can directly participate in determining battery specifications, procurement and use. At the stage when the cost of sodium batteries is the highest, CATL is being the first buyer of its new products.

1. The first attempt five years ago

On July 29, 2021, CATL released the first-generation sodium-ion battery. The energy density of the battery cell is 160Wh/kg, and it can be charged to 80% of the battery capacity in 15 minutes at room temperature. A lithium-sodium hybrid battery pack solution is also proposed.

Timing of release is still important. At the end of 2020, the price of lithium carbonate was still around 40,000 yuan per ton, and has been rising since then, approaching 600,000 yuan per ton in the second half of 2022. For battery manufacturers, a technology that can reduce lithium consumption suddenly has strong commercial appeal.

In April 2023, CATL and Chery launched the ENER-Q battery brand, announcing that sodium batteries would be the first to be launched on Chery models.

The market then turned. Starting from the end of 2022, the supply of lithium mines will increase and the price of lithium carbonate will continue to fall. The easiest selling point for sodium batteries to explain to customers is cost, a selling point that has shrunk along with lithium prices.

The difficulty lies in the distance from the element to the battery.

Sodium is very cheap, but it needs to be made of positive electrode materials, hard carbon negative electrodes, electrolytes and cells before it can be turned into a power battery. The manufacturing cost and yield of hard carbon anodes have long restricted the industrialization of sodium electricity.

Lithium iron phosphate has a mature graphite anode supply chain and a huge production scale. Cheap raw materials make more expensive products.

CATL spent several years making up this distance. In April 2025, the second-generation sodium battery brand "Naxin" was released, with the battery energy density increased to 175Wh/kg.

In February this year, Changan Automobile and CATL released a sodium-electric passenger car solution in Yakeshi, Inner Mongolia, with a range of more than 400 kilometers, and planned to promote it to multiple Changan brands.

In April, Wu Kai, chief scientist of CATL, disclosed that the company had achieved GWh-level industrialization of sodium batteries and solved manufacturing problems such as moisture control, hard carbon gas production, and aluminum foil attachment.

When technology has advanced to this point, the next bottleneck lies in demand.

2. Scale starts with energy storage

The path to cost reduction for sodium batteries is clear. CITIC Construction Investment estimates that large-scale materials can reduce costs by about 6 to 7 cents per Wh, and improvements in yield can further reduce costs by 1 to 2 cents. Increased capacity utilization can also dilute depreciation, labor and energy costs. To catch up with 0.38 yuan/Wh, sodium battery prices need to drop by about 19%.

In a report on November 5, Wood Mackenzie estimated that the learning rate of China's sodium power industry from 2026 to 2035 is about 18% to 20%. Every time the cumulative output doubles, the unit cost drops by nearly 20%.

Cost reduction depends on output, and output depends on orders. Faced with lower-priced lithium iron phosphate, car companies will be very cautious in purchasing sodium batteries. Lithium iron phosphate itself is also continuing to reduce costs, and sodium batteries are catching up with a moving curve.

CATL first found its capacity in energy storage. On April 27 this year, it signed a three-year energy storage sodium and electricity cooperation agreement of 60GWh with Haibositron, with an average of 20GWh per year.

Putting this number together with cars, the gap is huge. Based on an estimate of 45kWh per vehicle, 10,000 to 20,000 sodium-electric passenger cars correspond to about 0.45 to 0.9GWh. The demand for sodium electricity from passenger cars this year is approximately equivalent to 2% to 5% of the average annual scale of this energy storage agreement.

Energy storage is responsible for running production lines and keeping costs down. The significance of passenger cars lies elsewhere: it determines whether sodium batteries can enter the largest battery market, and who will set the rules for entry.

The tool to promote this is battery replacement.

3. Battery replacement changes who buys batteries

Under the traditional model, battery factories sell batteries to car companies, the car companies decide the specifications, quantity and suppliers, and consumers buy the entire vehicle. For sodium batteries to be put into cars, car companies have to absorb the cost premium themselves and bear the risk of consumer acceptance.

Battery swapping breaks apart this decision-making chain. Zeng Yuqun said on November 10 that CATL is building battery swap stations and leasing batteries to consumers. Consumers buy the car body, the battery is held and managed by the operating system, and the car owner pays monthly rent.

The battery swap version of BAIC Jihu Beta S3 is a ready-made example. When choosing battery rental for the 535 PLUS version, the body price is RMB 59,800 for a limited time; the price of the vehicle including battery is RMB 89,800; and the home battery rental discount price is RMB 399 per month. The price difference of 30,000 yuan is approximately equivalent to 75 months' rent.

In this model, the person who decides which battery to buy becomes the battery operator. Operators are concerned about the revenue and costs of a battery for six, eight or even more years: procurement, charging, maintenance, depreciation, residual value and financing costs. Batteries have gone from components sold once to assets that continue to generate cash flow.

CATL stands on both ends of this chain at the same time. It develops and manufactures sodium batteries, and is also involved in formulating battery specifications, configurations and service rules for chocolate battery swaps. Ningde Times can directly arrange which type of car and which city uses sodium batteries in the battery swap network.

The early premium of sodium batteries therefore moved from the car purchase stage to the battery operation stage, and was gradually diluted through rent, service life and asset management efficiency.

When car companies hesitated, CATL placed the order first.

4. Battery replacement just makes up for the shortcomings of sodium batteries.

Putting sodium batteries and battery replacement together, there is a lower level technical logic behind it. Several shortcomings of sodium batteries are difficult to solve in private car mode. Put them into the battery swap network and you will have a solution.

Let’s look at energy density first. The International Energy Agency's technology comparison shows that advanced sodium batteries are about 175Wh/kg and advanced lithium iron phosphate is about 205Wh/kg. For the same weight, sodium batteries hold about 15% less electricity.

Private cars only have one battery, and this battery must be equipped according to the most extreme days of the year: the long journey back home during the Spring Festival, the coldest morning in winter, and running the air conditioner at full load on the highway. Car owners usually drive dozens of kilometers every day, but they have to carry a large battery for long distances several times a year. The design standard for battery capacity is determined by the few days with the highest intensity of use.

Battery swapping rewrote this standard. The battery on the car only needs to cover the distance from one station to the next. This is exactly what Zeng Yuqun said on November 10th: sodium batteries are sufficient for daily urban travel, and long-distance battery life concerns on weekends are left to the battery replacement network.

The battery exchange network uses site density to replace part of the battery energy density.

The biggest shortcoming of sodium batteries has been moved to the network level to solve it.

The denser the stations, the shorter the battery life that a single battery has to bear, and the more models and scenarios that sodium batteries can enter. This also explains the rhythm of the Ningde era: first build the station to 3,000 seats, and then put sodium trams on the road.

Let’s look at the low temperature. The discharge capacity of lithium iron phosphate decreases at low temperatures. The battery often needs to be heated before charging. The heating itself consumes power and time. Data released by CATL shows that the capacity retention rate of new sodium batteries exceeds 90% at minus 40 degrees Celsius, and the discharge power at minus 30 degrees Celsius is nearly three times that of similar lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Private car owners can only choose one type of battery when buying a car. Guangzhou car owners pay more for winter performance, which is hardly a good deal.

Battery pools at power swap stations can be allocated by region and season: stations in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia mostly use sodium batteries, and stations in South China use lithium iron phosphate.

The same sodium battery can be sent to the place where it can best exert its advantages in the pool. Chang'an and Ningde Era held the sodium tram launch conference in Yakeshi, Hulunbuir, and this is also their intention.

There is also a battery pack. Chocolate battery swap adopts standardized battery pack shape and interface. After the appearance, interface and battery management protocol are unified, whether the bag contains lithium batteries or sodium batteries becomes a configuration that the operator can adjust.

This gives the option of sodium batteries a way to land. When lithium prices rise, operators increase the proportion of sodium batteries in the pool; when lithium prices fall, they add more lithium iron phosphate. Car owners can hardly feel the switch, and car companies don't need to change models for this purpose.

The chemical system of the battery has changed from a fixed parameter in the vehicle design to an adjustable variable in the battery replacement network.

Finally, there is the learning curve. Based on Wood Mackenzie's learning rate of 18% to 20%, sodium batteries can equal the cost gap of lithium iron phosphate by approximately 19%, which theoretically requires approximately doubling of cumulative production. Lithium iron phosphate itself is also reducing costs, and the actual demand will be larger.

Doubling this time requires stable orders. The energy storage agreement provides the volume, and the battery replacement provides the demand for passenger cars that CATL can dispatch by itself. While car companies are still in the wait-and-see stage, CATL has been able to decide which cars in which cities will have the next batch of sodium batteries installed.

5. Who pays for this network?

Battery swapping stations are an asset-heavy business. Sinolink Securities estimates that the construction cost of the new generation of chocolate battery swap stations is about 1.5 million yuan, and 3,000 stations correspond to about 4.5 billion yuan. Battery assets, site rent and operating expenses are also calculated separately.

Return depends on utilization.

In October this year, "China Business News" revealed that NIO's battery swapping stations average about 24 battery swaps per day. The breakeven of a single station usually requires 60 to 70 times per day. The fifth-generation station has pushed the balance point to about 45 times.

Yang Jun, head of CATL’s battery replacement business, also admitted in April this year that “almost the entire industry is losing money and the utilization rate is very low.”

As of September 29, there were 2,520 chocolate battery swap stations. Based on this year’s target of 10,000 to 20,000 sodium trams, each station corresponds to about 3 to 7 sodium trams.

Chocolate Battery Exchange also serves other battery systems and models, and the site's income depends on the entire adapted fleet. This set of figures shows that sodium-electric passenger cars are still in the earliest stages of introduction.

CATL’s approach is to let more capital build the network together. On August 24, its subsidiary Times Electric Services signed a contract with Kunming New Energy Development to build 100 chocolate power swap stations in Kunming.

Kunming will undertake the asset investment, and Times Electric will provide power exchange standards, digital systems and operational support.

What local state-owned assets value is the urban energy supply network, as well as the distributed energy storage and power regulation services that will be extended in the future. CATL borrowed funds from its partners to speed up its network rollout, while maintaining standards and operations on its own.

In this way, the identity of the "first buyer" also has a partner's share. Sites, batteries and operations are shared among multiple parties, and the economics of each sodium battery must ultimately be proven in real operating data.

6. What Ningde era needs is a set of standards

The sodium electric circuit is already very lively. The Wood Mackenzie report shows that BYD has planned 30GWh of sodium power production capacity in China. Zhongke Haina started the process earlier, and the sodium-electric version of Huaxianzi, which is cooperating with JAC Yttrium, will be offline at the end of 2023, and batch delivery will begin in 2024.

According to statistics from the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, as of July this year, 34 companies across the country have deployed 45 sodium battery cell production bases, with a total planned production capacity of 293.7GWh, and 25.2GWh have been put into operation.

The supply side is ready, and the focus of competition turns to the demand side. Whoever can get stable downstream orders can take the lead in turning planning into production. CATL has two things in its hands: a mature customer network of car companies, and a battery swap network that it participated in the construction of.

Models that are connected to the chocolate battery swap must be designed according to the battery size, chassis layout, connection structure and battery swap interface during the development stage.

The Chocolate No. 26 battery released in April this year has a 75kWh, 800V architecture, pushing the standard coverage to B- and C-class cars. The more brands connected, the greater the battery factory’s say in vehicle design.

For car companies, access to battery swapping can bring lower car purchase thresholds and a ready-made energy replenishment network, at the cost of handing over part of the battery selection and operating rules to the platform.

In the past, automakers could flexibly allocate orders among multiple battery suppliers.

Once a vehicle model is deeply adapted to a certain set of battery swap standards, the supply relationship will extend to the body structure, energy replenishment services and battery asset management.

In this system, the competition between sodium batteries and lithium iron phosphate will gradually become a configuration choice within the battery replacement network. Which battery is suitable for which type of vehicle, which city, and which working condition is determined by operational data and arranged by the platform.

In 2021, CATL released sodium batteries for the first time, facing high lithium prices. Five years later, lithium prices fell by more than 80%, but it increased investment.

It now has a three-year 60GWh energy storage agreement, more than 2,500 battery swap stations, which will exceed 3,000 by the end of the year, and more and more car companies that have access to the standard. Energy storage drives down costs, and battery replacement replaces sodium batteries in the automotive market.

Five years ago, CATL and other car companies came to buy sodium batteries. Now, it has become the first buyer.

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