breveSodium-ion EV battery breakthrough delivers 11-min charging and 450 km range
https://electrek.co/2026/03/25/sodium-ion-ev-battery-delivers-11-min-charging-450-km-range/
I don't know what chemistry exactly these cells are using, but in sodium-ion batteries, prussian blue analogs as they are called are common anode materials. Overcharging these cells can lead to a release of hydrogen cyanide gas, notoriously known as Zyklon B.
It has damped my enthusiasm for perusing it as a potential future home energy storage solution.
Its metallic sodium. Its about 30 times more volatile than Lithium. We don't use metallic sodium for almost anything industrial because of this volatility. I assumed there would be some mixed Li-Na-ion batteries. A pure Na-ion battery is an explosive waiting to go off. Putting these in a car...seems rather like a poor choice unless you are a personal injury lawyer.
I doubt that it is metallic sodium, for the same reason why the rechargeable lithium batteries do not use metallic lithium electrodes like the non-rechargeable batteries.
During charge-recharge cycles, a metallic electrode is likely to be degraded quickly.
So it is more likely that the reduced sodium atoms are intercalated in some porous electrode, e.g. of carbon, while at the other electrode the sodium ions are intercalated in some substance similar to Prussian blue.
The volatility of sodium does not matter, because it is not in contact with air or another gas, but only with electrolyte.