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Sodium-ion batteries have started to appear in cars and home storage

(cleantechnica.com)
160 points xbmcuser | 2 comments | 23 Oct 25 01:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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tedk-42 ◴[23 Oct 25 05:14 UTC] No.45678361[source]▶
Where are all the commenters about how China can't innovate and they can only steal technology now...

Reverse that, why don't other countries / companies try and steal their talent and IP? Is everyone resigned to think that China are undefeatable on the technology/manufacturing of these batteries?

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1. dwd ◴[23 Oct 25 06:19 UTC] No.45678767[source]▶
The sodium ion battery was invented over 200 years ago. No one needs to steal the technology, and manufacturing is basically the same.

All the research is in finding ever better combinations of anode/cathode.

Lithium mining and processing is dominated by Western countries, which is why China is incentivised to develop and manufacture sodium ion batteries. They know the game and haven't ignored it, unlike the West who ignored the geopolitical risk of China dominating rare earth processing for 20+ years.

The West should have a similar incentive despite having most of the lithium, namely supply risks for graphite, cobalt and nickel. There is a lot of research going on but mostly in Europe.

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2. formerly_proven ◴[23 Oct 25 06:51 UTC] No.45678952[source]▶
> The sodium ion battery was invented over 200 years ago.

Citation needed

> All the research is in finding ever better combinations of anode/cathode.

Trivial matter then.