China’s Sodium Battery Breakthrough Just Made Lithium OBSOLETE

CATL has developed a sodium-ion battery that achieves 160 Wh/kg energy density, over 10,000 charge cycles, and maintains 90% capacity at -40°C, while costing approximately $19/kWh (less than one-third of lithium-ion batteries). This breakthrough was enabled by the discovery of hard carbon in 2000, which can accommodate larger sodium ions without structural degradation, solving the fundamental challenge that prevented sodium batteries from being viable for decades.