Sodium, Lithium and Lead: Why The Battery Market Has Room For All Three

A new battery chemistry does not have to replace the old one to be useful. It has to find the job it is good at.

That is the simplest way to understand why sodium-ion cars are arriving in China before the US or Europe. The three markets are not asking their batteries to do exactly the same thing. Drivers have different habits, governments have different priorities, and carmakers are at different stages of the switch away from petrol.

The result does not have to be one chemistry winning and the others losing. It can be a market where different chemistries find different jobs.

China: the market was ready first

Sodium-ion has been through more testing than the showroom launch might suggest. CATL launched its Naxtra sodium-ion battery in April 2025. Later that year, the battery went through further testing and became the first sodium-ion battery to pass China’s new GB 38031-2025 national safety standard for power batteries.

That matters because a new chemistry does not become a car battery simply because the cells work in a laboratory. It has to survive the much less forgiving world of vehicles. CATL’s development programme included testing designed to see how the cells behave under serious abuse, including crushing, drilling and other damage. The company then moved towards mass production and vehicle deployment.

The Changan Nevo A06 is scheduled to bring sodium-ion into a mass-produced passenger car in 2026, with roughly 400 kilometres of range on China’s test cycle and performance designed for temperatures from minus 40 to plus 70 degrees. The chemistry gives up some energy density compared with the best lithium-ion batteries. In return, sodium-ion has potential advantages in areas such as cold-weather performance, cost and the availability of its raw materials.

But the important point is that China did not simply decide that sodium-ion was better. It had a market where the chemistry could be tested. New-energy vehicles accounted for 62.8% of China’s passenger-car retail sales in June, according to the China Passenger Car Association. When a large share of customers already accepts plugging in, introducing another battery chemistry becomes a much smaller leap.

That makes China an important lead market for sodium-ion. A lead market does not have to be the market that proves a technology is universally better. It is the market that gives the technology somewhere to learn. Real cars create real data. Real drivers reveal what matters. Manufacturers learn what breaks, what needs improving and which customers actually want the product. That information can then travel to other markets.

The US: two markets moving at different speeds

The US is a useful reminder that a country does not have to make one choice. Some American drivers want to move quickly into fully electric cars. Others want lower fuel use without changing how they drive, charge and travel. And plenty simply do not see a reason to change their car yet. The market can accommodate all three.

In the first half of 2026, battery-electric vehicles accounted for about 6% of US light-duty vehicle sales, while hybrids reached a record 16% in the second quarter. Federal tax credits for new electric vehicles also expired in September 2025. Those numbers are not a verdict on which approach is right. They show that American buyers are choosing different routes.

For someone who drives long distances and wants to keep the familiar experience of filling up quickly, a hybrid can be an attractive halfway point. For someone who has easy access to charging and wants a fully electric car, a lithium-ion EV is already an option. And for someone who is happy with their current petrol car, there may be no immediate reason to change at all.

That last point matters. A technology transition does not have to mean that everybody changes at the same time. The US can be both a market for change and a market for people who want to wait. That is not a contradiction. It is what a large, diverse car market looks like.

Sodium-ion may eventually find a role in the US, particularly in vehicles where lower cost, cold-weather performance or other characteristics matter more than maximum range. But there is no need to force that chemistry into the market before manufacturers and consumers know where it works best. Research can continue while people make different choices. That gives the US something valuable too: time to see what happens in markets where sodium-ion is already being tested at scale.

Europe: this is where research matters

Europe is further along the electric-car journey than the US, but that does not mean it has to rush into one battery chemistry. Battery-electric cars accounted for 20.7% of new EU registrations in the first half of 2026, up from 15.6% a year earlier. Hybrids accounted for another 37.3%. So Europe already has a large and growing electrified-car market.

But it also has another question to answer: where should Europe’s batteries come from? That is where sodium-ion research becomes important. Europe has companies developing sodium-ion materials and cells, including Sweden’s Altris and France’s Tiamat. Altris and Czech chemical company Draslovka are working to establish a European sodium-ion cathode-material supply chain, while Tiamat is developing industrial-scale sodium-ion production in France.

The point is not that sodium-ion has already proved it should replace lithium in Europe. It has not. The point is that Europe needs to understand whether it can become a useful second chemistry: one that could offer another option for vehicles where extreme range is less important and potentially reduce dependence on particular imported battery materials. That requires research, testing and pilot production before anyone can know where the chemistry genuinely belongs.

And that is a perfectly good reason not to demand that every European car become sodium-powered tomorrow. Europe can keep buying lithium-ion EVs while researching sodium-ion. In fact, that may be exactly what research is for. You do not need to wait for the old technology to fail before investigating the next one. You investigate the next one so that you have more choices when the market needs them.

Lead is still part of the story

There is another chemistry that gets forgotten because it is not new. Lead-acid batteries are still used in modern electric vehicles for low-voltage systems. The high-voltage battery moves the car, but a separate low-voltage battery can still power functions such as electronics, locks and vehicle systems.

Lead also has something the newer chemistries are still working towards: an enormous recycling infrastructure. European battery rules set ambitious recycling and material-recovery targets for lead-acid batteries, reflecting a mature collection and recycling system. That is important because the battery story is not only about what happens when a car is driving. It is also about what happens when the battery reaches the end of its life.

And the old and new worlds are already overlapping. Clarios, a major low-voltage battery company, has invested in Swedish sodium-ion developer Altris. The companies are working together on the development of sodium-ion batteries for low-voltage applications. That is a useful reminder that battery development is not necessarily about throwing the old technology away. It can be about finding a better technology for the next job.

Why the chemistries can coexist

This is why the battery market should not be described as a race in which one chemistry has to win. Lithium-ion is extremely good at delivering range and energy density. Sodium-ion could become useful where cost, cold-weather performance, resource availability or other factors matter more than maximum range. Lead-acid continues to do a specific low-voltage job, backed by decades of manufacturing, collection and recycling infrastructure.

And none of those statements requires every market to adopt every chemistry at the same time. In fact, different adoption speeds can be useful. China can act as a lead market for sodium-ion passenger cars. That gives manufacturers real-world experience and gives other markets evidence to study. Europe can keep expanding its EV market while researching sodium-ion and other technologies. That gives manufacturers more choices and reduces the risk of betting everything on one supply chain. The US can support people who want to move quickly towards fully electric driving, while also giving hybrids and conventional cars a place for people who are not ready, or simply do not have a reason, to make the switch yet.

And lithium, sodium and lead can all coexist within that transition. That is not a failure to choose. It is the point.

Different markets, different speeds

The important thing is not that every market reaches the same destination at the same time. It is that each market has somewhere to go. China can give sodium-ion its lead market: a place where manufacturers can put the chemistry into real cars, collect data and improve it at scale. Europe can keep expanding its EV market while researching sodium-ion and other technologies, giving manufacturers more information before committing large amounts of capital to a new chemistry. The US can support the people who want to move quickly towards fully electric driving while also giving hybrids, petrol cars and people who want to wait a legitimate place in the market.

There is no prize for adopting a technology first if the market does not need it yet. And there is no reason to dismiss a technology simply because another market is moving more slowly. The lead market helps prove a new technology. Research helps work out where it belongs. Markets that move more slowly give consumers and manufacturers time to adapt. And markets that move quickly show everyone else what is possible.

The future of the car battery may therefore be less about finding one winner and more about having enough good options to let different people, in different places, move at different speeds.

Lithium, sodium and lead do not need to beat each other. They need to be good at their jobs.

Sources: CATL and Changan announcements on the Naxtra battery and the Changan Nevo A06; China’s GB 38031-2025 traction-battery safety standard; the China Passenger Car Association for NEV retail share; ACEA and EU registration data; US light-duty and hybrid sales data for the first half of 2026; the EU Batteries Regulation for lead-acid recycling targets; and company statements from Altris, Tiamat, Draslovka and Clarios. Performance figures for sodium-ion cells are manufacturers’ own claims. Written from the public record; where a figure could not be verified, it is not stated as fact.