Beyond lithium: how sodium-ion batteries could change the worldhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02150-yThe world's largest battery maker is about to mass-produce batteries made from sodium, a material more than 1,000 times as abundant as lithium in Earth's crust and up to 60,000 times as plentiful in the ocean. Chinese giant CATL starts production before the end of 2026 and has already signed deals with a car manufacturer and a grid-storage provider.
The price gap is striking: industrial-grade sodium carbonate cost $200–280 per tonne last month, against $20,000–25,000 per tonne for battery-grade lithium carbonate. Sodium cells also replace copper with cheap aluminium and graphite with easily made carbon materials, they are less flammable, and they keep working at −40 °C. CATL has spent nearly $1.4 billion on the technology since 2016.
The trade-off is capacity. CATL's sodium cell stores 175 watt-hours per kilogram, with 200 promised soon. That matches the cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate batteries now common in Chinese cars, but it is only two-thirds of what top lithium cells deliver, so long-range electric cars are staying on lithium for now.
Energy analyst Auke Hoekstra, whose bullish renewable-energy forecasts have often proved right, admits the speed caught him off guard: "I honestly did not expect it to go that fast — and I am usually the guy who is seen as an optimist." He calls sodium-ion "a game-changer" for the future of energy. Others are more cautious. CATL expects cost parity with the cheapest lithium batteries by the end of 2026; research firm Wood Mackenzie says 2035.
The clearest opening is grid storage for solar and wind power, where energy density matters little and lower fire risk means simpler, cheaper battery packs. Almost all manufacturing capacity sits in China and is expected to stay there until 2030, which has pushed the United States to fund a five-year, $50-million research programme of its own. Battery researcher Shirley Meng doubts sodium will replace lithium outright, describing it instead as insurance against lithium supply shocks: the world's energy transition is getting a second battery chemistry to lean on.