Will Sodium battery replace Lithium very soon?

By end 2025, the new energy batteries market is "full of ups and downs", facing complex opportunities and challenges.

On one hand, the price of lithium carbonate futures has exceeded RMB 120,000 yuan/ton, and the cost pressure in the downstream of the industry chain continues to rise. On the other hand, leading battery enterprises have been actively making moves in the sodium battery field, reigniting the long-dormant topic of sodium battery industrialization and making it once again the focus of the industry.

Can sodium batteries become a strategic choice for battery industry enterprises to cope with cost pressures? Will the new energy battery industry truly witness a "lithium-sodium complementary" pattern? This has sparked market speculation and reflection.

The price of lithium has rebounded strongly, and battery enterprises have been actively engaged in sodium battery-related activities.

As one of the core raw materials for lithium batteries, the lithium carbonate price change have always been closely monitoring by the entire industry chain.

The price of lithium carbonate futures has rebounded strongly in recent months after hitting a low of 59,000 yuan/ton in the middle of this year. In December, it continued to soar.

On December 23rd, the price of the main contract of lithium carbonate futures has exceeded RMB 120,000/ton, reaching a new high for the year. The market is extremely heated, which has also significantly increased the cost pressure in the new energy battery industry.

Some industry experts predict that the global market demand for lithium carbonate is expected to increase by 30% in 2026, and the supply and demand will gradually reach a balance. If the growth rate reaches 40%, the price of lithium carbonate may continue to rise.

For downstream material and battery enterprises, the high price of lithium will directly squeeze their profit margins. Coupled with the intense competition in the new energy vehicle market, cost control ability has become one of the core competitiveness of enterprises in the lithium battery industry chain.

In this context, enterprises in the new energy battery industry have an increasingly urgent need for low-cost alternatives, which provides an important opportunity for the industrialization development of sodium batteries.

Observation shows that recently, several battery and material companies in the field of sodium batteries have successively announced significant developments.

On December 22nd, EVE Lithium Energy announced that it will invest approximately RMB 1 billion to build the "EVE Sodium Energy Headquarters and Jin Yuan Robot AI Center" project. Among this, it plans to achieve an annual production capacity of 2 GWh for sodium batteries, and will focus on large-scale applications in scenarios such as energy storage and AIDC.

On November 17th, a relevant announcement from Ningbo Ronbay New Energy Technology disclosed that the company had reached a cooperation agreement with CATL. Ronbay was listed by the latter as its first supplier of sodium battery positive electrode powder. According to the agreement, CATL will purchase from Ronbay every year, with an amount not less than 60% of its total purchase volume of sodium battery positive electrode powder. If the annual purchase volume is ≥ 500,000 tons, Ronbay will also offer price discounts to the other party by reducing costs. This news helped push the stock price of Ronbay limit up and also set a new high for its stock price in the past two years.

The roadmap of leading lithium battery enterprises regarding sodium batteries is becoming increasingly clear.

For the future development trends of sodium batteries and the "strategy deployment" of these enterprises themselves, the leading enterprises in the industry have all provided their own logical support as well as the timeline for the industrialization of sodium batteries.

According to the data, the sodium new battery released by CATL in April this year has passed the new national standard GB38031-2025 "Safety Requirements for Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles", and has become the world's first sodium-ion battery to pass the new national standard certification.

CATL also stated during an investor relations event that regarding the new sodium-based passenger vehicle battery power supply, they are currently working with customers to develop and implement it. The progress is going smoothly at present, and in 2026, they will achieve mass supply according to the customer's schedule.

Liu Jincheng, the chairman of EVE Lithium Energy, recently pointed out that hydrogen, lithium and sodium all belong to the first main group of the periodic table and are energy elements bestowed upon humanity by nature. They are also the key directions for the development of new energy. In the future, EVE Lithium Energy will be committed to creating comprehensive solutions for electrochemical energy storage of hydrogen, lithium and sodium.

Bai Houshan, the chairman and president of Ronbay Technology, also made a prediction. He believes that in the next 3 to 5 years, the era of energy singularity will arrive. Sodium batteries will account for a significant proportion in the future energy system, with the demand in the power and energy storage markets being the greatest. In 10 years, sodium batteries are expected to occupy 60% of the energy storage market share.

Sodium batteries will expand from the 3C sector to the automotive and energy storage fields, or may become the clear main line.

According to the data, sodium batteries have advantages in terms of resource availability, low-temperature performance, low carbon footprint, and safety, and can be widely applied in 3C, electric two-wheelers, passenger/commercial power, and energy storage fields.

According to market information, based on its self-developed sodium battery products, the subsidiary of Vico Technology, Nanchang Vico, has reached long-term cooperation intentions with customers in Europe, America, South Asia and other regions. The production of their export-oriented orders has been scheduled until 2028.

Furthermore, it is reported that the sodium battery production line of Jiangxi Dongchi New Energy is currently operating efficiently, capable of producing 1 million sodium-ion batteries per day. These batteries will be sold to the global market. According to the information, the sodium-ion batteries developed by them have been widely applied in the 3C electronics sector.

In the market aspect, overall, at present, sodium batteries have become mature in applications such as 3C products and electric two-wheel vehicles, and have achieved mass production and assembly verification. Or they are about to reach a turning point for large-scale application in the fields of new energy vehicles and energy storage.

At this juncture, the leading lithium battery enterprises are increasing their investment in sodium batteries, not merely to alleviate the pressure caused by the high lithium prices, but rather as a long-term strategic choice based on resource security, technological breakthroughs, and market expansion. The core is to build an energy ecosystem that integrates lithium and sodium resources.

Nideka will be able to achieve mass production and supply of vehicle-use sodium batteries by 2026. EVE Lithium Energy will develop a comprehensive solution for hydrogen, lithium, and sodium energy storage... All these will drive an increase in the market penetration rate of sodium batteries in vehicles and energy storage applications.

However, it should be noted that at present, the overall cost of vehicle-mounted and energy storage sodium batteries is still higher than that of similar lithium batteries, which is one of the main reasons restricting their large-scale application. In fact, from the resource perspective, the cost of sodium resources is much lower than that of lithium resources, but the manufacturing cost of sodium batteries is still higher than that of lithium batteries.

One of the challenges facing the industry is that it is not the case that sodium batteries need to first reduce costs before achieving large-scale installations for vehicles and energy storage. Instead, it is necessary to achieve large-scale cost reduction through mass production. During this process, the collaboration between battery manufacturers and down stream end-users is of crucial importance. In fact, lithium batteries also went through this development process several years ago.

As top lithium battery enterprises continue to invest heavily in the sodium battery sector, it will facilitate the convergence and upgrading of various technical routes for sodium batteries. This is also a strategic positioning battle for these enterprises before the large-scale installation of sodium batteries. Currently, the new energy battery industry has shown a coexistence pattern of lithium and sodium batteries. In the future, Chinese battery enterprises may also gain technical dominance and market leadership in the global sodium battery sector, and are expected to profoundly influence the global energy transformation.