On September 7, per People's Finance News on STCN (08:05) and China Securities Journal's Zhongzheng Golden Bull (republished by Eastmoney), Huatai Securities released a sodium-ion battery industry research report titled "Is Sodium-Ion Still Economic After Lithium Prices Fell?", systematically estimating the industry logic and demand outlook. Its core view: the market generally treats sodium-ion batteries as a hedge when lithium prices are high and considers sodium economics invalid once lithium prices fall, but the industry logic has shifted from a lithium-price hedge to standalone economics - industrialization signals are now clear, the future cost-reduction roadmap is defined, and differentiated advantages are creating application scenarios, so industrialization is gradually decoupling from lithium prices.
On industrialization progress, the report reviews four tracks showing sodium-ion has completed its "0 to 1": products - CATL's Naxtra 24V truck start-stop battery entered mass production in June 2025 and its passenger-car Naxtra power battery in December 2025; Hithium's infinityCell N162Ah reached GWh-scale production in Q4 2025; CATL released the Tianheng sodium storage system with over 15,000 cycles in June 2026. Projects - EVE Energy's sodium-ion storage system was grid-connected in Jingmen, Hubei in September 2025, and Phase I of the HiNa-DATANG 100MW/200MWh project in Hubei was grid-connected in October 2025. Standards - the IEC international standard for 12V sodium-ion start-stop batteries, led by Camel Group, passed with unanimous votes from 17 participating countries in October 2025.
Orders - CATL signed a 3-year 60 GWh long-term agreement with HyperStrong in April 2026, then 5 GWh with Alfen (Netherlands) and 2 GWh with Solarpro (Eastern Europe) in July, bringing orders on hand to over 67 GWh. On demand estimates, the report expects five major application scenarios to reach cost parity successively from 2026 to 2030, sodium-ion demand reaching 800 GWh by 2030 and 2,047 GWh by 2035 with storage contributing nearly 80%; 2027-2028 is the validation window for capacity and orders, with scale release after 2029. The report suggests focusing on sodium battery companies that enter downstream scenarios first, and cathode, anode and aluminum foil material suppliers.