The sodium-ion battery-equipped model has a battery pack capacity of 23.2 kWh, a CLTC range of 230 km, and can be charged from 10 percent to 80 percent in 20 minutes.
Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Corp (JAC) has begun delivering electric vehicles (EVs) equipped with sodium-ion batteries, marking the official market entry of EVs equipped with the new power batteries.
Yiwei, a new brand of JAC that focuses on the EV market, officially delivered the world’s first sodium-ion battery-powered EVs in volume on January 5 in Anqing, Anhui province, Anhui Daily News reported on Friday.
The model is a new variant of the Yiwei 3, the first model of the Yiwei brand, and uses 32140 sodium-ion cylindrical cells from battery maker Hina Battery.
Each battery cell has a capacity of 12Ah and an energy density of over 140 Wh/kg, according to Anhui Daily.
These new cells use a copper base layer-like oxide technology route, which has advantages in safety, energy density, low temperature performance, and cycle life, the report noted.
The sodium-ion battery-equipped Yiwei model has a battery pack capacity of 23.2 kWh and a CLTC range of 230 km, with an electricity consumption of about 10 kWh per 100 km.
Compared to lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, sodium-ion batteries have better low-temperature performance, with over 92 percent capacity retention at -20°C, according to Anhui Daily.
Even in extremely cold regions, the model’s winter range degradation is negligible, according to the report.
The battery also supports faster charging speeds, going from 10 percent to 80 percent in 20 minutes and from 30 percent to 80 percent in 15 minutes, double the charging speed of current mainstream LFP batteries.
Sodium-ion batteries are expected to form a complementary pattern with LFP batteries in the future, becoming a solution that balances cost and performance, Anhui Daily quoted Yiwei’s chairman Xia Shunli as saying.
Yiwei will launch a new sodium-ion battery-equipped model with a range of 300 km in the half-year of 2024, according to the report.
JAC launched its new brand Yiwei (钇为 in Chinese) on April 12 and made the brand’s first model, the Yiwei 3, available on June 16.
Hina Battery, one of the major players in sodium-ion batteries, unveiled three sodium-ion battery cell products on February 23, 2023, and announced a partnership with JAC.
On December 27, Hina Battery announced that a model powered by sodium-ion batteries, which it built jointly with JAC, rolled off the production line.
This article was first published by Phate Zhang on CnEVPost, a website focusing on new energy vehicle news from China.
