BYD to build first sodium-based battery manufacturing plant for EVs

Chinese electric car and battery technology giant BYD has flagged plans to building a new multi-billion dollar battery plant  base to manufacture sodium-based batteries for its EVs.

BYD has signed a deal with local company, Huaihai Holding Group, to manufacture up to 30 GWh of annual battery production, according to cnevpost.

It says BYD’s battery division will build the Sodium battery plant in Xuzhou, located in the eastern part of China with an annual cost of 10 billion RMB or $A2.15 billion. This will be the largest project of its kind, although there was little information about the nature and performance of the sodium-based batteries.

One of the key assumed benefits of sodium based batteries over lithium ion is lower costs, and a lower dependence on some minerals that are either rare or have volatile markets, or both.

In recent months, however, the prices of Lithium carbonate have fallen considerably, making Lithium-ion batteries cheaper again, as Goldman Sachs report.

 This has potentially shifted the focus from Sodium battery development projects, but Swedish giant NorthVolt has also announced a breakthrough in sodium batteries – at least for energy storage – that could flow through to EVs.

These batteries are likely to end up in smaller EVs such as the BYD Seagull which is expected to be BYD’s top-selling vehicle globally after launching earlier in 2023.

BYD currently specialises in its Blade battery technology which is lithium based. All vehicles it sells in Australia has this battery technology. Along with that, BYD also supplies its batteries to Tesla to produce Model Ys in Europe.

Given the scale required and the opportunity to invest in a Sodium manufacturing base, it allows BYD to have redundancy in case the Lithium carbonate prices rise quickly in the coming years.

This would help keep the cost of more affordable EVs low while continuing to develop sodium battery technologies. Such batteries are likely to end up in smaller EVs such as the BYD Seagull which is expected to be BYD’s top-selling vehicle globally after launching earlier in 2023.