A cell that reached mass production in 2025, a car that followed in 2026
CATL, a Chinese battery maker, calls its sodium ion battery Naxtra. A sodium ion battery stores and releases power much like the lithium ion batteries used in most electric cars today, except sodium, the same element that makes table salt salty, carries the charge instead of lithium. CATL says it reached mass production of Naxtra, meaning it started building the cell on a factory line in large volumes rather than as a one off prototype, on 21 April 2025. At the time, the company said it was achieving the mass production of sodium ion batteries for the first time. What changed in 2026 is the car. On 5 February 2026, CATL and a Changan model unveiled what CATL calls the first mass production passenger vehicle equipped with a sodium ion battery, and CATL says that car reaches the market by mid 2026.
Why the company is chasing sodium instead of lithium
CATL founder and chief executive Robin Zeng said lithium prices in China had risen 190% in the year before he spoke, at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian. He gave that price rise as the reason CATL is building a sodium battery business.
We can produce a large scale sodium battery for energy storage, so we get rid of the lithium dependence.
Robin Zeng, founder and chief executive of CATL, speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian. Source 5.
How many cars will carry the battery this year
CATL chief manufacturing officer Ni Jun says the company expects between 10,000 and 20,000 electric vehicles to carry a sodium ion battery in 2026. He made the claim in a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum meeting in Dalian, on 24 June 2026, and described the battery as engineered to perform between negative 20 and negative 30 degrees Celsius, cold that can weaken an ordinary lithium ion battery.
We came up with a novel design which can perform at that kind of extreme condition.
Ni Jun, chief manufacturing officer of CATL, speaking in a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum in Dalian on 24 June 2026. Source 4.
What range the car delivers today, and what CATL projects
CATL says the car delivers over 400 kilometres of pure electric range today. The company projects the same pure electric version will reach 500 to 600 kilometres once its supply chain matures. An earlier CATL statement, made in April 2025 when only the cell existed, put the range at 500 kilometres. The finished car, according to the more recent statement, delivers less than that today, so this article uses the newer, vehicle specific figure.
CATL states the car delivers over 400 kilometres today and separately projects 500 to 600 kilometres once its supply chain matures. The bars show the stated thresholds, not rounded estimates. An earlier CATL statement from April 2025, before the car existed, gave 500 kilometres for the cell alone, source 1, and this chart uses the newer, vehicle specific figures from source 2 instead.
Show the numbers
| Delivered today | 400 |
| Projected low end | 500 |
| Projected high end | 600 |
CATL also projects 300 to 400 kilometres of range for a range extended or hybrid version of the same platform, a car that carries a small petrol engine alongside the battery to extend how far it can travel. Both projections come from the same February 2026 release, and CATL states them as a future goal, not as a range the car delivers today.
Both projections come from the CATL February 2026 vehicle release, source 2, and describe a future goal once the supply chain matures, not the range the car delivers today. Range extended means the car also carries a small petrol engine that extends how far it can travel beyond the battery alone.
Show the numbers
| Pure electric version | 500 to 600 kilometres |
| Range extended version | 300 to 400 kilometres |
The same chemistry is scaling into a second market
CATL is also selling the same underlying sodium ion chemistry into stationary energy storage, batteries that sit in a building or on the grid rather than in a car. On 27 April 2026, CATL signed a 3 year agreement with HyperStrong to supply 60 gigawatt hours of sodium ion batteries for that market, an agreement CATL calls its first strategic sodium ion partnership for energy storage and the largest sodium ion supply agreement anywhere to date. Zeng separately said CATL believes it can build 100 gigawatt hours of sodium ion production capacity a year within 3 to 5 years. That yearly capacity figure and the 3 year storage agreement describe different things, a future production ceiling against a fixed supply deal, not the same figure counted twice.