It is one of the hopes to reduce the price of electric cars, ensure autonomy of hundreds of kilometers and, above all, guarantee a long useful life. They are sodium batteries and BYD has already announced that it will launch an electric car with them and a contained price next summer.
Already in November 2018 we collected information about this type of battery. The promises are many: autonomy seven times higher than lithium, cost savings of up to 80% and really fast charges to reach 80% in just 15 minutes. Mind you, advances have been resisted for years. Years to which BYD may have put an end.
Cheap, sodium and electric, BYD believes it has the key
Mid 2023. It is the date that BYD will launch a electric utility barely 3.6 meters long, to which it has managed to provide a range of 300 kilometers with its first mass-produced sodium battery. They have named it: BYD Seagull.
To get a better idea, it is the same as what a Fiat 500e measures, which approves a 320 km battery according to the WLTP cycle. Where is the advantage then? It is that BYD will put its Seagull on the Chinese market at a price of 60,000 yuan, just over 8,000 euros.
It is true that prices cannot be directly compared with Europe, since both markets are completely different. Mercedes, for example, has had to lower the prices of its electric vehicles a lot. But there is something certain and it is that the sodium battery can be a great tool to reduce costs and make it attractive in the city, where the prices of vehicles are still high with a short range.
So much so that despite taking its first steps, BYD assures that it will start using these new components in its models for less than 200,000 yuan (just over 27,000 euros). According to their accounts, prices are already at 88 euros per kWh and they hope to reach 68 euros per kWh.
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These figures are very good, as European and US manufacturers are trading at costs of $120/kWh for their lithium batteries, when this year they were expected to fall below $100/kWh. The scarcity of the mineral and the enormous amount of lithium that China accumulates makes it even more difficult for electric and combustion to equalize their prices.
