Electric viking just did a video on it it was about CATL solid state batteries there’s no electrolyte to burn as such in those
Historically Na batteries were a lot lower capacity and more fragile but recent breakthroughs have improved them, highest capacity 18650 are 1300mAh at the moment compared to 2500mAh or so for lithium but progress is snowballing with them and best part is they use the same production lines just switch ingredients out.
Also the charge/discharge rates and voltages are very different to lithium so you can’t just use them as a drop in replacement as such
I’ve seen a lot of info on battery tech recently the last info I saw was CATL I think and their sodium batteries exceed safety rules at least fwiw, more so than lithium including directly penetrating the cell at least what I saw anyways.
Sodium cells are much lower capacity but over the past few years they’ve increased it hugely and now more work than ever is ongoing I expect eventually it’ll exceed lithium or at least match it. Regardless even if not we can’t use lithium forever.
Sodium batteries also don’t suffer at low temps, at – 20c they’ll perform exactly the same as at higher temps up to 50C or so I think it said.
Can’t comment on any issues as such because the ones I’ve seen are claiming to not behave that way so whether someones lying or that’s a different technology I dunno
I’ve also seen a US firm that use sea water to make batteries so they literally can’t catch fire as they’re salt water based although those were super low capacity but very easy to scale
I’ve also seen that Catl has also built a battery with sodium and lithium cells to give best of both I guess be interesting to see
Oh the sodium cells can charge very very fast too
I have A levels in chemistry, physics and biology so I’ve always been super interested in science stuff I watched Tomorrows World from age 4 or so and my mum used to catch my watching OU broadcasts back when they used to not broadcast tv during the day (remember that, test cards etc Omg my age lol).
Because of my situation I have a lot pc time where I can’t do much but watch videos, read articles and keep an eye on research not that I’m an expert of much but I do keep my ear to the ground.
Catl obviously believe there’s a future in it as they’re investing billions building a factory for sodium cells and batteries. I’ve always been fascinated with electric vehicles ever since my best friend had a C5 then it was various electric kids ride ons etc then electric bikes and of course de restricting it, even managed to luck up an original citroen made electric DS kids ride in car although that uses lead acid lol.
I’d be really interested if anyone has info they’ve seen and want to share it’s so cool to see