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[princec]

It's just beginning now (Chinese-market only) but I should think it'll work its way over here pretty quickly. Then it's perhaps it's going to be a race between sodium, and solid-state lithium tech. Maybe. Maybe both, but for different use cases eg. lorries vs. motorcycles. Who knows. Point is, no-one else does either, so we're all waiting to see.

Cas

[Richard230]

I seem to recall that during the very early days of Zero, when the bikes were first marketed, the original founder said that he was using a sodium-based battery that would be easy to recycle. After the founder was kicked out of the company, they switched to lithium batteries and I never heard anything further about sodium batteries.   

[princec]

I don't think we'll see sodium in motorcycle batteries ... at least not outside of urban transport ... just not power-dense enough. Plenty fine for cars and larger things though with room to spare.

Cas

[Alan Stewart]

Sony started making 18650 battery cells in 1991, so there’s a huge amount of industry experience in manufacturing cylindrical li-ion batteries.

For nickel-based (NCM, NMC, NCA) battery cells using flammable liquid electrolytes there’s a measure of safety in having a hermetically sealed solid metal casting.

Cylindrical cells have the advantage of having only two edges that need to be sealed, the top and bottom.

I read it will likely be a long time before anyone has the manufacturing capacity to topple li-ion battery cells. It takes a lot of time, money, and risk to bring a new battery innovation to market at scale.

I have read that it is the oxygen-containing liquid electrolytes that make the fire risk of current nickel-based li-ion battery cells so high. They have their own oxygen supply built in, so can’t be simply snuffed out as a gasoline fire can be. There’s no reason a liquid electrolyte has to be so flammable. I can remember reading reports of some researcher claiming to have one. But any new electrolyte has to meet or surpass what has been achieved by current electrolytes (power density, energy density, temperature range, life span, cost) and be available in adequate quantity. Then battery cell designs have to be updated, manufacturing has to be re-engineered and updated, and customers have certify the end result before they incorporate the new cells into their products. All this takes years and costs money.

[Stonewolf]

IIRC energy density for Energica's cells are over 600Wh/l whereas sodium-ion doesn't break over 400. Volume is very much the limiting factor for motorbikes rather than weight, if you could do a straight replacement of sodium-ion batteries into an Eva Ribelle you'd end up with capacity similar to the older battery but with none of the cooling advantages. This is why solid-state lithium is currently the front-runner for the next generation of motorcycle battery technology because the gravimetric energy density boost is handy but a 40% bump in volumetric energy density and a superior thermal performance are the real stats we actually care about.

Cars can just be big, motorcycles are a packaging nightmare.

[T.S. Zarathustra]

Cas. Maybe Solid-State-Sodium is the Next-Big-Thing.

[princec]

We live in exciting times. Reckon lithium for proper bikes though, need that power density. Commuters and scoots might end up with sodium to get them at a price parity with petrol though?

Cas

[Doctorbass]

The update about the 26120 is that it will now be made by A123 Systems
 Molicel, their acytual supplier have some difficulty to supply quantity of P50B. I am not sure if the choice to adopt a 26120 from different company is to diversify their suppliers or problem with availlability however.

I have long experience with A123. These were the first to make commercially availlable high power cells of 30C continuous and 60C peak back in 2007.

I used their 26650 M1 cell to acheive my world speed record in electric bicycle in 2009 with plenty of their cells salvaged from Dewalt 36V battery

These were 2.3Ah nanophosphate cells and had the aluminum casing just like the new anounced 26120 but I doubt these would be LFP

Doc