China’s CATL touts landmark order in ‘DeepSeek moment’ for sodium-ion batteries



The world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) and ESS battery maker announced on Monday that it would deliver 60 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of sodium-ion batteries to Beijing HyperStrong Technology over three years in a landmark deal for the new battery technology.
Sodium-ion batteries, an alternative to the pervasive lithium-ion type, bank on a more plentiful raw material, making them cheaper to produce.

“The deal could be interpreted as a ‘DeepSeek moment’ for the global ESS battery industry, since wide use of sodium in production could greatly reduce costs and improve manufacturing efficiency,” said Davis Zhang, a senior executive at Suzhou Hazardtex, a supplier of specialised batteries. “Commercialisation of sodium-ion batteries will benefit the EV and ESS industries.”

Artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek drew the world’s attention to China’s AI prowess in early 2025 when it released a breakthrough large language model developed at a lower cost than Western counterparts.

“This agreement signals that CATL has overcome all the challenges in mass-producing sodium-ion batteries,” the company said in a statement. “We now have the capability for large-scale delivery.”

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