Are investors betting on the wrong EV battery?

The world’s largest battery maker, Contemporary Amperex Technology Company, or CATL, unveiled a sodium-ion powerpack to much fanfare last year. It had crossed a significant hurdle for the variety and said it was building a supply chain and in talks with car makers.

Read also: Sona Comstar hopes to ride out the global EV boom

Battery promised. At the time, CATL’s deputy head of research said that while the energy density of its new sodium-ion powerpack was lower than existing lithium-ion, it had other advantages such as maintaining its performance in cold weather and charging quickly. Late last month, the company said it planned to start mass production next year.

Read also: This battery stock rises 10% on strong Q2 results. Brokerage has ‘Buy’ tag

On paper, the material cost for these batteries is about 30% lower than the lithium-ion variety. There is no danger of fire. They charge fast and have a long life cycle. After the big announcement by CATL, other companies followed suit with big-name investors in their versions.

Read also: MG Air EV to launch in India soon: Check details here

Turns out, the reality is something else. Sodium-ion powerpacks, after gaining traction as a cheaper alternative, aren’t as effective for EVs as previously believed, recent research suggests. They have all the qualities of a good EV battery, but in most cases they are best used for backup power or two wheelers. For example, in some yoga poses, they can deliver high strength for short periods ranging from one minute to 10 minutes. That’s hardly enough for one car.

Furthermore, if this battery were to be adapted for electric vehicles, the energy density of its cells would need to be increased by at least eight times to get anywhere close to what EVs need. To do this would require the addition of metals such as nickel. The sodium-ion type also requires more components and construction to deliver the same amount of energy, as one battery startup founder told me. A CATL executive also acknowledged that while raw materials such as sodium are cheaper, the final product costs no less than lithium-ion. This brings us back to the same problem: expensive powerpacks.

Some manufacturers are starting to correct the shortcomings as well. Recently, Guangzhou Tinsy Materials Technology Co., the world’s largest manufacturer of electrolytes – the part that allows ions to flow – called these batteries “waste”. Large scale energy storage system yet. It’s just one example of a promising and hyped battery technology that firms haven’t committed to from the get-go. Sodium-ion batteries may well improve in the long run and may be ready for use in green cars to replace lithium-ion, but they are not there yet.

With all the incentives and funding now looming, it’s hard to imagine companies and startups backing away from saying too much, too soon to please investors. So before making big bets and promises for firms and proponents, it’s important to read between the lines and get your head around the science, no matter how complex the chemistry is. That’s the only way they can determine what’s going to make a significant impact, what’s incremental and what’s too far from reality to actually be commercially viable.

Without all that hard work, we’re not going to see cheap batteries or EVs, but a plethora of fanciful ideas and a lot of wasted money.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.