Beyond Lithium: New Battery Tech Starts to Break Through

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://e360.yale.edu/features/energy-storage-sodium-solid-state

As EV sales boom and grids seek more energy storage, researchers are racing to develop batteries that are cheaper, more powerful, and less reliant on hard-to-source materials. Lithium-ion still dominates, but sodium-ion and solid-state technologies are moving from lab to market.

By Nicola Jones • July 8, 2026

The market for batteries these days is insatiable. Demand has grown more than fortyfold since 2010, thanks mainly to electric cars: Sales of EVs hit 20 million in 2025, or about a quarter of all cars sold globally. Shipping containers packed with batteries are also being called into play to store the electricity from renewables like solar. Storage capacity for solar farms has grown twentyfold in just five years.

This boom has fed a frenzy in battery research and development. “In the past five years, innovation went very, very fast,” says Teo Lombardo, a former battery chemist and now an analyst for the International Energy Agency. “In 2024, over 40 percent of energy-related patents were on batteries. That’s never happened before. That tells you how quickly the market is evolving, and how much interest there is.”

Lithium-ion batteries are today’s gold standard for lightweight, high-powered energy storage for laptops, power tools, smartphones, drones, and electric cars. But now, says Lombardo, two new technologies are attacking lithium-ion’s dominance from either end of the cost spectrum: Cheap but bulky sodium batteries promise to run budget electric vehicles and help to power the grid; and expensive but powerful solid-state batteries offer long ranges for luxury EVs. Meanwhile, plenty of other battery chemistries are being tested in the lab, with hopes that new winners might eventually emerge to power the future.

“The battery market is becoming so large that it’s not a matter of one technology replacing another,” says Lombardo. “It’s about specializing to serve different parts of the market.”

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[Crowman2009]

1. It would be great if EV didn't have batteries that cause fires in a crash.

Besides environmental concerns, I believe that cars should also not be prone to burst into flames.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. It's funny how concerned people are about EV fires

Every day, millions of people drive vehicles with gas tanks, which (if Hollywood is to be believed) are prone to explode at the slightest provocation.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/electric-car-fire-statistics.html

Electric car fire statistics 2026

Updated 25 July 2024

The popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) in the U.S. has exploded in recent years, with millions of EVs registered nationally. However, some misconceptions about these vehicles and their safety remain, including perceptions that EVs are more likely to catch fire than gas-powered vehicles.

Though data on vehicle fires in the U.S. is limited, evidence from national studies in Europe and elsewhere suggest EV fires are actually rarer than fires involving other types of vehicles.

…

Australian firm EV FireSafe maintains a database of EV fire incidents that occur globally. It recorded fewer than 400 verified battery fires in passenger EVs between 2010 and June 2023.

In 2023, Sweden’s Authority for Social Protection and Preparedness (MSB) reported just 24 EV car fires in 2022, representing just 0.004% of the country’s 611,000 EVs.4 For cars running on gasoline or diesel fuel, the fire rate was 0.08%.

…

EV fires do make the news of course, partly because they are dramatic, but, more, because they are unusual. In 2024, according to DOT statistics, 39,254 "Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities" occurred. How many of them made the evening news?