May be switching from lithium and copper to sodium and aluminum

softdown

Just watched a good youtube vid. China's largest lithium battery manufacturer is preparing for a big change in battery chemistry. The manufacturing process stays the same though.
Weight will go down about 8% due to using aluminum instead of copper.
Cost will go down about 8% because sodium and aluminum are cheaper than copper and cobalt and lithium.
Energy density? They claim it is going up. We'll see about that.
Safer

When? "Sometime in 2023. We'll see about that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts2vRBhj658

Photowhit

Big advantage is they are much more cold tolerant, good down to-20 Celsius, or about -4 Fahrenheit. 

softdown

Photowhit said:

Big advantage is they are much more cold tolerant, good down to-20 Celsius, or about -4 Fahrenheit. 

That is huge. I keep thinking that changing from lithium and copper to sodium and aluminum should represent more than an ~8% reduction in cost. Perhaps they don't want to crash the present market? 

We have 1000 times more sodium than lithium. Something like that also applies to aluminum vs. copper. They didn't say too much about the cobalt used in the higher performance batteries. Cobalt mining is also an absolute ecological disaster.