CATL expects sodium ion batteries to eventually replace 30% to 40% of the whole battery market

What the company founder expects

A sodium ion battery stores energy the same way a lithium ion battery does, but replaces the lithium with sodium, a metal that costs far less to mine. CATL, the world largest battery maker, already sells one for passenger cars, called Naxtra, that CATL states reaches 175 watt hours per kilogram, the highest energy density among sodium ion batteries anywhere, and a range of 500 kilometres. Robin Zeng, founder and chairman of CATL, told investors he expects sodium ion batteries to eventually replace 30% to 40% of the existing battery market, not cars alone but every use a lithium battery serves today, including storing power for the electric grid.

What that share would have meant for lithium in 2024

In 2024, 220,000 tons of lithium were consumed worldwide, and the United States Geological Survey counts 87% of that total, about 191,400 tons, for batteries. Applying the 30% to 40% figure to that single year of battery lithium, as a what if and not a forecast since CATL names no date for it, works out to 57,000 to 77,000 tons a year, a calculation made for this article. That range is close to a quarter to a third of the entire 240,000 tons of lithium mined worldwide in 2024.

But lithium demand is not standing still to be replaced. The government count shows world lithium consumption rose 29% in a single year, from 170,000 tons in 2023 to 220,000 tons in 2024, and mine production rose 18% over the same period. Separately, scientists at a United States Department of Energy laboratory, writing in a peer reviewed journal, put global lithium demand for 2025 at 1.4 million metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, a refined lithium compound measured in a different unit from the ton figures above, 53% higher than in 2023.

Real capacity behind the bet

CATL is not only talking about sodium batteries. The company says it will invest 5 billion yuan, 735 million dollars, to add 40 gigawatt hours a year of sodium ion power battery capacity, its own term for batteries built to drive a vehicle. A gigawatt hour is a unit of energy large enough to size a whole factory. The new capacity is planned at a plant CATL owns called Fuding Shidai, which is set to reach 149 gigawatt hours a year in total once finished, including capacity built before this expansion. Separately, CATL signed a 3 year, 60 gigawatt hour contract with HyperStrong to supply sodium ion batteries for energy storage, not vehicles, which the company calls the largest order the industry has recorded.

How far it has actually gone

Right now the numbers are much smaller. Ni Jun, chief manufacturing officer of CATL, said the company expects 10,000 to 20,000 electric vehicles worldwide to carry its sodium ion batteries in 2026, a small fraction of the tens of millions of cars sold globally each year. CATL and Changan Automobile unveiled a passenger vehicle fitted with a sodium ion battery in February 2026, due in the market by the middle of that year, with a stated range of 400 kilometres. Asked about the cold weather engineering behind the batteries, Ni Jun said, "We came up with a novel design which can perform at that kind of extreme condition," speaking at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China. CATL states the Naxtra battery keeps 90% of its usable power at 40 degrees below zero.

We came up with a novel design which can perform at that kind of extreme condition.

Ni Jun, chief manufacturing officer of CATL. Source 5.