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by random32 days ago |
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upvoteby dwood_dev2 days ago|
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While Sodium Ion may be the future of grid batteries, it's not the present. As long as LFP is cheaper, there is no reason to go with Sodium.

This calculus will probably change in 3-5 years, but today Sodium is more expensive and therefore has little demand without some form of discount or subsidy.

The switch will be rapid once the economics make sense, but they don't yet.

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upvoteby nharada2 days ago|
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CATL is claiming mass production of their sodium-ion batteries starts in December, with a target price of $10/kWh. If that ends up even partway true it'll completely change the economics of power storage.
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upvoteby grayrest2 days ago|
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> CATL is claiming mass production of their sodium-ion batteries starts in December, with a target price of $10/kWh.

This got widely reported but there doesn't seem to be any source. I'll reference this video [1] to cover the claim along with a comparison to industry projections. Apologies for the video link but I don't have an article handy that addresses the topic as directly.

[1] https://youtu.be/KjiqqafD_0w?t=861

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upvoteby nharada1 days ago|
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You're right, I can't find any primary sources for this number. Yahoo[1] reports this number and attributes it to Bloomberg NEF but I can't find an actual article from Bloomberg with this number, or any actual target number in it.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-10-sodium-ion-battery-16505...

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upvoteby bmicraft2 days ago|
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That's plain wrong, they have not announced that price target anywhere. There is speculation that it could be there target internally for the long term, but there is basically zero chance they'll start at that price and no guarantees they'll ever reach it.
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upvoteby nharada1 days ago|
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You're right, I can't find any primary sources for this number. Yahoo[1] reports this number and attributes it to Bloomberg NEF but I can't find an actual article from Bloomberg with this number, or any actual target number in it.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-10-sodium-ion-battery-16505...

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upvoteby nextworddev2 days ago|
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CATL is just dumping
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upvoteby bryanlarsen2 days ago|
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CATL had a profit of $2.6B last quarter on sales of $15B. That indicates they're pricing well above cost rather than below it.
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upvoteby tooltalk2 days ago|
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dumping doesn't depend on profit or loss. Also the legal definition of dumping is less-than-the-"normal value." (see Article VI ANTI-DUMPING AND COUNTERVAILING DUTIES of GATT 1994).

But then China is a non-market-economy, so none of these rules apply in a hypothetical anti-dumping case -- ie, China's local price, or "normal value" doesn't matter.

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upvoteby bryanlarsen1 days ago|
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A normal value for a highly competitive commodity part like a battery is about 3% above cost. CATL charges over 20% above cost. So you might have an argument that CATL has monopoly pricing power and is gouging its customers.

IOW that they're illegally charging too much, not that they are illegally charging too little.

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upvoteby tooltalk20 hours ago|
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Sure, that's not what a normal value is.

As explained, the price level or the cost of manufacture in China, the exporting country, is completely irrelevant as their local price/cost of manufacturer is artificially propped up by illegal state subsidies or other anti-market tactics to cripple foreign competition past 15 years. Again, China is a non-market-economy.

In those cases, trade regulators can use "undistorted" prices without gov't interference or use a market price in a similarly situated 3rd country as benchmark.

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upvoteby bryanlarsen18 hours ago|
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If that's your definition of a non-market economy, then no Western economy is either.
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upvoteby tooltalk15 hours ago|
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It's really just China and these countries:

  Republic of Armenia,
  Republic of Azerbaijan
  Republic of Belarus
  Georgia
  Kyrgyz Republic
  Republic of Moldova
  Russian Federation
  Republic of Tajikistan
  Turkmenistan
  Republic of Uzbekistan
  Socialist Republic of Vietnam
The term NME is a specific legal designation for anti-dumping cases. The list isn't static -- unlike China, Vietnam has made a lot of reforms and many speculate they will be removed before 2030.

No need to pretend that Chinese EV/battery companies can compete on their own without the gov't protection or "illegal" subsidies.

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upvoteby nextworddev1 days ago|
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Western folks still don’t get how China works more than two decades after WTO lol
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upvoteby nharada2 days ago|
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What makes you say that? I don’t know this space very well
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upvoteby nextworddev2 days ago|
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Dumping batteries is yet another strategy to take control of global energy infrastructure and destabilize petrodollar
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upvoteby nharada2 days ago|
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Oh yeah I get what you’re saying but is that a thing? Like CATL has had lines before that aren’t making a profit?
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upvoteby Qwertious1 days ago|
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It's not a thing; people are just stuck in the 2000s and think that China can't beat the West technologically and therefore must be cheating.
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upvoteby tooltalk19 hours ago|
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> people are just stuck in the 2000s and think that China can't beat the West technologically and therefore must be cheating.

We are talking since early 2010 and on. And it's pretty much what everyone says they are: China has been breaking every trade/IP laws/agreements -- forced IP transfer/IP theft, ban foreign competition, illegal state subsidies to overcapacity, etc to get to where they are in the EV battery market.

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upvoteby nextworddev1 days ago|
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They have decent technology (which they stole a decent chunk) and cheat at the same time.. nothing to do with the west feeling insecurity. In fact, the west could benefit from some mobilizing around insecurity
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upvoteby 1 days ago|
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upvoteby jillesvangurp2 days ago|
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Sodium ion production is only recently starting to ramp up. It will take a few years for that to put a dent into LFP marketshare (both for grid storage and EVs). China is a bit ahead of course. CATL just announced they are starting mass production of their second generation battery in December. It will take a while for that factory to get to full speed production. And if they are building more factories, that will also take a while. Think 10s of ghw production short term.

The US only recently got volume production of LFP working. A lot of the battery production there is still older chemistries based on NMC. Companies like Peak Energy are indeed experimenting with sodium ion and are looking pretty good right now. But they don't have any mass production facilities yet. That's years away at best.

I expect there may be some licensing deals with Chinese manufacturers down the line to address this. Sodium ion might become a lot more dominant from 2030 onward. Until then, LFP should remain dominant.

And with LFP being quite decent already, there's no need to wait until the 2030s with large scale grid storage deployments. This stuff works right now. That's why adoption is so high and rapid around the world.

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upvoteby JumpCrisscross2 days ago|
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> It looks like it's relevant part of China's strategy

For grid storage? Source?

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