China is fast becoming the one to watch when it comes to our world of batteries. For it is no longer sourcing its ideas only from the West. The Asian nation is pushing ahead with sodium batteries, while making great strides with their lithium-ion contemporaries. Today we ponder could electric scooters put sodium ahead in China.
Sodium Batteries are Riding on Electric Scooters
The BBC News channel reminds us how China was first out the blocks with sodium electric car batteries. Although their short driving ranges hardly excited the motoring public.
Then CATL may have made a smart move in April 2025, when it announced a plan to mass-produce sodium-ion batteries for heavy-duty trucks and cars.
However, sodium driving range is still shorter than lithium batteries in electric cars. And that becomes an issue for anyone traveling long distances. But this is not the case with electric scooters, which take short trips in urban areas.
Chinese company Yadea is hoping to build its scooter business on the back of sodium battery power. The BBC News reports a recent promotional event, where ‘glitzy Vespa-like scooters showed off their batteries made from sodium’.
Certainly, as armchair travelers, we wondered could electric scooters put sodium ahead of the game, as we admired a group of fast-charging pillars ready to charge the scooter batteries to 80% in fifteen minutes. There was even a battery swapping station at the drop of a QR code.
Could China’s Multiple Pronged Approach Promote Sodium?
However it seems that China is not that successful with sodium with sodium at this stage. We have however heard that its utility operators are using the technology to incorporate renewable energy.
BBC News suggests that this adaptive approach, could ‘put China in a leading position of a global race – should there be one’. We conclude that while sodium-ion batteries may not be an unmitigated success, they are making inroads into the Chinese scooter market.
More Information
Electric Scooter Battery Market Expanding
Sodium Ion and Lithium Ion Batteries
