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For most of the past decade, the story of battery technology has been a story about lithium. It powers phones, laptops and nearly every electric car on the road. Lithium, however, has a habit of swinging sharply in price. When it peaked in 2022, battery makers took a serious look at a far more common ingredient: sodium, the same element found in table salt. Sodium-ion patent filings rose roughly twelvefold between 2020 and 2024.
Sodium-ion cells work much like their lithium cousins. Charged particles move back and forth between two electrodes as the battery charges and discharges. The difference is in the ingredients. Sodium is cheap and plentiful, and these cells need no lithium or cobalt, using lower-cost aluminum foil on both electrodes. The main drawback is weight. Sodium cells hold roughly 30% less energy than lithium iron phosphate cells, so they need more mass to deliver the same output.
That tradeoff shapes where sodium shows up first. Energy storage is widely seen as its biggest and most certain market, while electric two-wheelers and start-stop batteries in cars offer a quick path to replacing lead-acid. Sodium also holds up well in the cold, working down to about minus 40°C.
This year has been a turning point. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (SZSE: 300750), the world’s largest battery maker, introduced its Naxtra sodium-ion brand in April 2025. In February 2026, it joined Chongqing Changan Automobile Company Limited (SZSE: 000625) to unveil what the two called the first mass-production passenger car running on sodium-ion cells. CATL has since said Naxtra reached gigawatt-hour scale production, and it signed a 60 GWh sodium-ion supply deal with an energy storage company, the largest agreement of its kind so far. BYD Company Limited (SZSE: 002594) has also moved in, launching a 2.3 MWh containerized sodium-ion storage system in 2025.
None of this makes sodium a sure thing. Its cost advantage depends heavily on lithium prices, and current lithium carbonate prices still put pressure on that edge. Global shipments are expected to reach only tens of gigawatt-hours in 2026, a small figure next to lithium-ion volumes.
Against that backdrop, CBAK Energy Technology Limited (NASDAQ: CBAT), a China-based maker of lithium-ion and sodium-ion cells, announced that it signed an investment agreement with the Nanjing Gaochun Economic Development Zone. The project calls for 12 GWh of yearly capacity for large cylindrical sodium-ion cells, along with modules and complete battery systems.
The details deserve a close read. The company plans to advance the project in the second half of 2027, but only if it secures financing, and development would happen in phases. The lines will be able to produce either sodium-ion or lithium-ion cells, depending on what customers want. Using current lithium-ion cell prices as a benchmark, CBAK estimates the plant could bring in between $712 million and $741 million (RMB 4.8 billion and RMB 5.0 billion) a year at full output.
The nearer step is at the company’s existing Nanjing factory. By the end of 2026, it aims to add 6 GWh of large cylindrical cell capacity, lifting the site from 4.5 GWh to 10.5 GWh, citing strong demand for its larger cell formats. If the new lines run at full capacity and sell everything they make, CBAK estimates annual revenue of between $356 million and $400 million (RMB 2.4 billion and RMB 2.7 billion).
Customer testing of CBAK’s sodium-ion samples is underway in home and portable energy storage and electric mobility, with more evaluations covering specialty vehicles, start-stop systems and backup power. The company stresses that neither revenue figure represents contracted sales or guidance for any reporting period.
Taken together, the plan reflects a wider shift. Sodium-ion is no longer just a laboratory idea, but the industry giants have a large head start, and lithium prices can change the math quickly. The things to watch are whether financing comes through, whether customer tests turn into orders and how smoothly the Nanjing expansion ramps up.
