Batteries & energy · News
CATL's sodium-ion line finally has a customer
Two years after the announcement, the first volume order arrives - and it is not for cars. That tells you what the chemistry is actually good for.
By Michael Westergaard · 28 Aug 2026 · 1 min
Sodium-ion has spent two years as a press release. It now has a volume order, and the buyer is a grid-storage operator rather than a carmaker.
That distinction is the whole story. Sodium-ion gives up roughly a third of the energy density of lithium iron phosphate, which is close to fatal in a vehicle where every kilogram costs range. In a shipping container bolted to a concrete pad, density barely matters and cost per cycle is everything.
The read-through for the vehicle makers is limited but not zero: every cell of grid demand that sodium-ion absorbs is lithium capacity that stays pointed at cars.
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