Are Sodium Batteries Already Dead?

I’ve got sodium batteries right here in my hands, but three sodium battery companies went bankrupt in the last year. Another shut down voluntarily and returned $9 million to investors … even though their technology worked. And one had $25 million worth of orders sitting in their warehouse that they couldn't legally ship.

While sodium batteries were busy getting better, lithium prices crashed by 90%. The one advantage sodium was supposed to have just evaporated.

And now we're left with a technology that works, products you can actually buy, but an industry that seems to be collapsing around it.

So what does this mean for you? Should you avoid sodium batteries? Are they a dead-end technology? Or is this just growing pains before sodium takes over?

Corrections

07:30 - I was incorrect in associating Northvolt's failure as a battery manufacturer to their sodium ion battery challenges. The companies issues went well beyond a specific battery chemistry issue, but stemmed from ramping up too fast and overspending on that ramp up.

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Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:56 - Batteries You Can Get Now
• 03:26 - The Sodium Cemetery
• 09:20 - But the Giants Are Still Betting Big