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Do any US automakers have anything in the pipes using Sodium-Ion batteries? A quick search turned up info on a plant mass producing the batteries in Holland, MI

Do any US automakers have anything in the pipes using Sodium-Ion batteries? A quick search turned up info on a plant mass producing the batteries in Holland, MI but no mention of when they would be available. As someone in the market for an EV within the next year or 2, and also currently enduring a month long stretch of temps in the single digits and below, cold weather performance has suddenly become a huge consideration.

loeg 7mo ago
Cold weather performance with heat pumps and lithium batteries is fine. Don't worry about it. I wouldn't try to hold my breath until a US automaker produces a sodium battery EV.
- throwaway894345 7mo ago
  It’s only “fine” if you live in the southern US where freezing conditions are rare and/or never drive anywhere near your winter range and you have a garage charger or some other easy access to a charge station. Anything outside of those conditions and winter range issues are painful.
  - loeg 7mo ago
    > and you have a garage charger or some other easy access to a charge station. I wouldn't recommend EVs in any climate without home charging.
  - rootusrootus 7mo ago
    And yet, some of the biggest proponents of EVs live in frigid areas of Canada and the US. As it turns out, range loss is not really a huge deal for a lot of people, but being able to get in your car and drive without worrying about whether it will start at all is nice. No plugging in a block heater, no worry about fuel gelling, no warm up time. And you can pre-condition the interior so it is warm when you get in. With a modern EV you could lose 50% range and still have plenty for your daily commute. Even a fairly long commute.
    - throwaway894345 7mo ago
      I own an EV and I’m a proponent of them. It’s still painful to have to deal with the winter range loss when driving outside my normal daily range.
    - gambiting 7mo ago
      Norway regularly sees -30C in winter and EVs account for like 99% of sales there, it made the news that in January only 7 ICE cars were sold in the entire country.
      - fooqux 7mo ago
        It's also a different country with a different culture, etc. Norwegians drive roughly 50% less than people in the US. There's probably a bunch of contributing factors, but the point is that reduced range is less of a problem if you drive less. I'll be the first to say we need less range anxiety, and Norway is awesome. But we need to be careful comparing the US to Norway here.
      - kortilla 7mo ago
        The taxes make it financially ruinous to make any other decision there
      - tzs 7mo ago
        Around 90% of Norway's population lives in southern or coastal areas that usually don't get anywhere near that cold.
        gambiting 7mo ago
        And the other 10% still buys EVs apparently.
        throwaway894345 7mo ago
        Probably has a lot to do with the incentives—tax rebates for EVs, taxes for ICE cars, cost of fuel, availability of fast chargers, etc. I’m glad Norway is pushing hard for greater adoption (and the US should too), but these things don’t make for a meaningful comparison.
  - wat10000 7mo ago
    Having a garage charger and never driving more than your winter range on any given day is a pretty common situation.
    - throwaway894345 7mo ago
      No one disputes that most days most people drive less than their winter range, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Most people survive cancer most of the time; I still wouldn’t characterize modern cancer treatment as “fine”. We aren’t settling for the 50th percentile.
      - wat10000 7mo ago
        For consumer products, handling the 50th percentile is excellent. There's nothing wrong with a car that is "only" suitable for half the population. Needing to buy a different kind of car and dying from cancer are ever so slightly different experiences. But thank you for the kind of absurd HN take that inspired my username.
        NetMageSCW 7mo ago
        But most of the EVangalists who post seem to have a very unrealistic viewpoint that says 33% of the (US) population is an edge case and that no one needs more than 200 miles of range because there are chargers every ten miles and no one goes on long trips anyway, especially unplanned (since they only have 80% of their range even when plugging in every night).
        throwaway894345 7mo ago
        > Needing to buy a different kind of car and dying from cancer are ever so slightly different experiences. But thank you for the kind of absurd HN take that inspired my username. It’s not absurdity, it’s analogy. If you can’t distinguish between the two then HN may indeed not be for you.
        wat10000 7mo ago
  - cmrdporcupine 7mo ago
    Nah dude, I live in Canada, we're having a record cold winter here, and it's really not bad. My car (Polestar 2) is one of the least efficient, has no heat pump in my year, and only has a ~225km effective range in winter (~300 in summer) but .. I have zero range anxiety, there's no pain, it's not annoying. The number of times one is driving that far in a single trip is miniscule, but there's DC fast chargers all along the highways that take the edge off, and there are cars with far larger range anyways.
    - throwaway894345 7mo ago
      Canada must have a better fast charger network than the US, because I have to deal with range anxiety whenever I’m visiting family or camping/cabin or even just driving through a reservation in the winter. When you’re staying somewhere that is 30% (battery charge) away from the nearest fast charger and you lose 10% per day, you start budgeting trips pretty fast.
  - mperham 7mo ago
    Yes, most people don’t drive 200 mi/day. It’s really ok.
    - throwaway894345 7mo ago
      Why do you imagine that average miles per day matters? I don’t drive anywhere near 200 miles/day, but any time I have to drive across the state (or farther) in the winter I have to recharge a lot more frequently, and the charging stations are busier and fewer in number (usually more are out of service in the winter either because the snow has drifted over them or because the cable was left in the snow and is now frozen over or a plow damaged the unit). Worse still, if you don’t have a charging cable in your parking space, you will have to drive to a charging station much more frequently (because the idle battery usage is much higher). But yeah, if you have a garage with a charger and you never exceed your winter range then it’s fine, per my previous comment.
      - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
        More than 60 million Americans own a home with a garage (where a charger can be installed) and most are within 100 miles of a fast DC charger. Edge cases continue to shrink and be solved for, electricity is ubiquitous and batteries keep improving rapidly.
        extra88 7mo ago
        I think proportion is more useful that quantity. 66% of housing units (that's all forms of housing, not just single-family homes) have a garage or carport. Also, given that there are ~145 million housing units, 60 million would be a bad situation. > most are within 100 miles of a fast DC charger That's not good enough. No one can spend 3-4 hours to drive 200 miles round trip, or even 100 miles, to charge quickly. There needs to be a good solution for the 33% of households that don't have access to EV charging as part of their home. Until it becomes really plentiful, part of the solution may involve fast charging that only the 33% can use or that favors the 33%; people who can charge overnight at home should charge overnight at home. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1268-december-12-2022-2021-two-thirds-us-housing-units-had-garage-or https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1268-dece...
- loeg 7mo ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmEAgNc0eY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmEAgNc0eY
jillesvangurp 7mo ago
LFP battery production in the US only recently reached larger scale; so I expect it will be a while before they get around to sodium ion. With all the tariffs, they'd have to license technology and build local factories to get started. That will probably be a few years at least. Or the tariffs might become more reasonable at some point and they could import battery cells a bit sooner than that. But probably not until the end of this decade.
cmrdporcupine 7mo ago
If you remove Tesla and Rivian from the equation, US automakers are actively curtailing EV production period. The US administration has basically told them to do so. So don't expect any innovation on this front from the middle of the North American continent. It's being actively sabotaged.
- mschuster91 7mo ago
  > The US administration has basically told them to do so. Any US automaker relying on Trump staying in office is playing with fire. Yes, you may see reduced or zero press releases and budgets for EV research being "reallocated" on paper so the toddler in chief doesn't get a public tantrum - but assuming there will be free and fair elections this year, it is highly, highly likely that Congress will be solid blue and reinstate a lot of what Trump has cut down, only this time as an actual law that is far harder to cancel than executive orders. And everyone not hedging for this possibility will wreck their company's future.
  - threemux 7mo ago
    There is no realistic path to a veto-proof majority for Democrats in the midterm elections. If there was, Trump would be impeached and removed before EVs were addressed. Don't expect any movement on EV legislation unless and until Democrats take back the White House in 2028
    - rootusrootus 7mo ago
      I would prefer that when the dems dive back into EV subsidies, they fly them under the radar instead of using tax credits for buyers. Lots of people actually believe that their fossil fuel is not subsidized, so we need to use the same techniques to actually help manufacturers bring competitive EVs to market.
      - cmrdporcupine 7mo ago
        It would be better for governments to provide tax credits / subsidies to battery manufacturing facilities than it would be to directly subsidize consumers. The hope being the cheaper battery component cost gets passed onto consumers. Vehicle sales subsidies frankly just end up rolled into the price as a markup. The Canadian government here partially has the right idea in only subsidizing vehicles under a 50k CAD ($36k USD) price tier -- unless they're manufactured in Canada. But I don't think that barrier is low enough. Should be $40k or even less. Our subsidy also takes the form of a direct cash subsidy instead of a tax credit -- which is regressive and helps people less in lower income tiers who don't pay much in income taxes.
seltzered_ 7mo ago
Likely No. Undecided with Matt Ferrell recently did a video on how sodium ion batterys startup in the US (not necessarily for EVs, but other power applications) have had challenges largely due to the falling price of lithium making sodium batteries less competitive on price the past couple years: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nrTCgZmUFCY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nrTCgZmUFCY OTOH, there are seemingly more lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery ev options now - rivian now uses LFP, Ford mustang mach-e has had a LFP variant since fall 2023 (and should have other models using LFP in 2027), I think the 2026 chevy bolt uses LFP, etc.

loeg 7mo ago

Cold weather performance with heat pumps and lithium batteries is fine. Don't worry about it. I wouldn't try to hold my breath until a US automaker produces a sodium battery EV.

throwaway894345 7mo ago
It’s only “fine” if you live in the southern US where freezing conditions are rare and/or never drive anywhere near your winter range and you have a garage charger or some other easy access to a charge station. Anything outside of those conditions and winter range issues are painful.
- loeg 7mo ago
  > and you have a garage charger or some other easy access to a charge station. I wouldn't recommend EVs in any climate without home charging.
- rootusrootus 7mo ago
  And yet, some of the biggest proponents of EVs live in frigid areas of Canada and the US. As it turns out, range loss is not really a huge deal for a lot of people, but being able to get in your car and drive without worrying about whether it will start at all is nice. No plugging in a block heater, no worry about fuel gelling, no warm up time. And you can pre-condition the interior so it is warm when you get in. With a modern EV you could lose 50% range and still have plenty for your daily commute. Even a fairly long commute.
  - throwaway894345 7mo ago
    I own an EV and I’m a proponent of them. It’s still painful to have to deal with the winter range loss when driving outside my normal daily range.
  - gambiting 7mo ago
    Norway regularly sees -30C in winter and EVs account for like 99% of sales there, it made the news that in January only 7 ICE cars were sold in the entire country.
    - fooqux 7mo ago
      It's also a different country with a different culture, etc. Norwegians drive roughly 50% less than people in the US. There's probably a bunch of contributing factors, but the point is that reduced range is less of a problem if you drive less. I'll be the first to say we need less range anxiety, and Norway is awesome. But we need to be careful comparing the US to Norway here.
    - kortilla 7mo ago
      The taxes make it financially ruinous to make any other decision there
    - tzs 7mo ago
      Around 90% of Norway's population lives in southern or coastal areas that usually don't get anywhere near that cold.
      - gambiting 7mo ago
        And the other 10% still buys EVs apparently.
        throwaway894345 7mo ago
        Probably has a lot to do with the incentives—tax rebates for EVs, taxes for ICE cars, cost of fuel, availability of fast chargers, etc. I’m glad Norway is pushing hard for greater adoption (and the US should too), but these things don’t make for a meaningful comparison.
- wat10000 7mo ago
  Having a garage charger and never driving more than your winter range on any given day is a pretty common situation.
  - throwaway894345 7mo ago
    No one disputes that most days most people drive less than their winter range, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Most people survive cancer most of the time; I still wouldn’t characterize modern cancer treatment as “fine”. We aren’t settling for the 50th percentile.
    - wat10000 7mo ago
      For consumer products, handling the 50th percentile is excellent. There's nothing wrong with a car that is "only" suitable for half the population. Needing to buy a different kind of car and dying from cancer are ever so slightly different experiences. But thank you for the kind of absurd HN take that inspired my username.
      - NetMageSCW 7mo ago
        But most of the EVangalists who post seem to have a very unrealistic viewpoint that says 33% of the (US) population is an edge case and that no one needs more than 200 miles of range because there are chargers every ten miles and no one goes on long trips anyway, especially unplanned (since they only have 80% of their range even when plugging in every night).
      - throwaway894345 7mo ago
        > Needing to buy a different kind of car and dying from cancer are ever so slightly different experiences. But thank you for the kind of absurd HN take that inspired my username. It’s not absurdity, it’s analogy. If you can’t distinguish between the two then HN may indeed not be for you.
        wat10000 7mo ago
- cmrdporcupine 7mo ago
  Nah dude, I live in Canada, we're having a record cold winter here, and it's really not bad. My car (Polestar 2) is one of the least efficient, has no heat pump in my year, and only has a ~225km effective range in winter (~300 in summer) but .. I have zero range anxiety, there's no pain, it's not annoying. The number of times one is driving that far in a single trip is miniscule, but there's DC fast chargers all along the highways that take the edge off, and there are cars with far larger range anyways.
  - throwaway894345 7mo ago
    Canada must have a better fast charger network than the US, because I have to deal with range anxiety whenever I’m visiting family or camping/cabin or even just driving through a reservation in the winter. When you’re staying somewhere that is 30% (battery charge) away from the nearest fast charger and you lose 10% per day, you start budgeting trips pretty fast.
- mperham 7mo ago
  Yes, most people don’t drive 200 mi/day. It’s really ok.
  - throwaway894345 7mo ago
    Why do you imagine that average miles per day matters? I don’t drive anywhere near 200 miles/day, but any time I have to drive across the state (or farther) in the winter I have to recharge a lot more frequently, and the charging stations are busier and fewer in number (usually more are out of service in the winter either because the snow has drifted over them or because the cable was left in the snow and is now frozen over or a plow damaged the unit). Worse still, if you don’t have a charging cable in your parking space, you will have to drive to a charging station much more frequently (because the idle battery usage is much higher). But yeah, if you have a garage with a charger and you never exceed your winter range then it’s fine, per my previous comment.
    - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
      More than 60 million Americans own a home with a garage (where a charger can be installed) and most are within 100 miles of a fast DC charger. Edge cases continue to shrink and be solved for, electricity is ubiquitous and batteries keep improving rapidly.
      - extra88 7mo ago
        I think proportion is more useful that quantity. 66% of housing units (that's all forms of housing, not just single-family homes) have a garage or carport. Also, given that there are ~145 million housing units, 60 million would be a bad situation. > most are within 100 miles of a fast DC charger That's not good enough. No one can spend 3-4 hours to drive 200 miles round trip, or even 100 miles, to charge quickly. There needs to be a good solution for the 33% of households that don't have access to EV charging as part of their home. Until it becomes really plentiful, part of the solution may involve fast charging that only the 33% can use or that favors the 33%; people who can charge overnight at home should charge overnight at home. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1268-december-12-2022-2021-two-thirds-us-housing-units-had-garage-or https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1268-dece...
loeg 7mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmEAgNc0eY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmEAgNc0eY

jillesvangurp 7mo ago

LFP battery production in the US only recently reached larger scale; so I expect it will be a while before they get around to sodium ion. With all the tariffs, they'd have to license technology and build local factories to get started. That will probably be a few years at least. Or the tariffs might become more reasonable at some point and they could import battery cells a bit sooner than that. But probably not until the end of this decade.

cmrdporcupine 7mo ago

If you remove Tesla and Rivian from the equation, US automakers are actively curtailing EV production period. The US administration has basically told them to do so. So don't expect any innovation on this front from the middle of the North American continent. It's being actively sabotaged.

mschuster91 7mo ago
> The US administration has basically told them to do so. Any US automaker relying on Trump staying in office is playing with fire. Yes, you may see reduced or zero press releases and budgets for EV research being "reallocated" on paper so the toddler in chief doesn't get a public tantrum - but assuming there will be free and fair elections this year, it is highly, highly likely that Congress will be solid blue and reinstate a lot of what Trump has cut down, only this time as an actual law that is far harder to cancel than executive orders. And everyone not hedging for this possibility will wreck their company's future.
- threemux 7mo ago
  There is no realistic path to a veto-proof majority for Democrats in the midterm elections. If there was, Trump would be impeached and removed before EVs were addressed. Don't expect any movement on EV legislation unless and until Democrats take back the White House in 2028
  - rootusrootus 7mo ago
    I would prefer that when the dems dive back into EV subsidies, they fly them under the radar instead of using tax credits for buyers. Lots of people actually believe that their fossil fuel is not subsidized, so we need to use the same techniques to actually help manufacturers bring competitive EVs to market.
    - cmrdporcupine 7mo ago
      It would be better for governments to provide tax credits / subsidies to battery manufacturing facilities than it would be to directly subsidize consumers. The hope being the cheaper battery component cost gets passed onto consumers. Vehicle sales subsidies frankly just end up rolled into the price as a markup. The Canadian government here partially has the right idea in only subsidizing vehicles under a 50k CAD ($36k USD) price tier -- unless they're manufactured in Canada. But I don't think that barrier is low enough. Should be $40k or even less. Our subsidy also takes the form of a direct cash subsidy instead of a tax credit -- which is regressive and helps people less in lower income tiers who don't pay much in income taxes.

seltzered_ 7mo ago

Likely No. Undecided with Matt Ferrell recently did a video on how sodium ion batterys startup in the US (not necessarily for EVs, but other power applications) have had challenges largely due to the falling price of lithium making sodium batteries less competitive on price the past couple years: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nrTCgZmUFCY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nrTCgZmUFCY OTOH, there are seemingly more lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery ev options now - rivian now uses LFP, Ford mustang mach-e has had a LFP variant since fall 2023 (and should have other models using LFP in 2027), I think the 2026 chevy bolt uses LFP, etc.