Dave Borlace doesn't just track battery news; he corrects his own predictions in real-time, revealing that the electric vehicle revolution isn't a distant horizon but a current reality. While many analysts wait for a single "silver bullet" technology, Borlace argues that the true disruption is happening simultaneously across three distinct fronts: cost reduction, thermal efficiency, and raw energy density. This is not a story about one company's breakthrough, but a global race to redefine what an electric vehicle can be.
The Abundance of Salt
Borlace opens by admitting a forecasting error, noting that sodium-ion batteries arrived sooner than anticipated. "It turns out that EVs using sodium ion batteries won't start hitting the markets in a few years time after all because they've already arrived right now in early 2023." He frames this not as a failure of imagination, but as a sign of accelerating market dynamics. The core of his argument rests on resource scarcity: lithium reserves are geographically concentrated and volatile, whereas sodium is ubiquitous. "There's more than a thousand times more sodium in the Earth's crust than there is lithium," Borlace writes, emphasizing that this abundance could slash production costs by roughly ten percent.
He highlights the JAC Group and BYD as the vanguard of this shift, deploying these batteries in affordable, small urban vehicles. The logic is pragmatic: "not everyone wants a huge electric SUV." For city commuting, the lower energy density of sodium—140 watt-hours per kilogram compared to lithium's higher figures—is an acceptable trade-off for the massive cost savings. Borlace suggests this technology is perfectly suited for "electric scooters or bicycles and motorbikes or even for buses" where weight is less critical than in long-haul transport. Critics might note that sodium-ion technology still faces challenges in cold weather performance and charging speed compared to mature lithium-ion chemistries, but Borlace's point stands: it solves the affordability crisis for the mass market.
Lithium has become the default technology of modern day energy storage but lithium is not all that common... the price of lithium has gone completely interstellar recently.
Thermal Mastery and Range
Moving beyond chemistry, Borlace examines how manufacturers are squeezing more performance out of existing lithium-ion cells through architectural innovation. He points to CATL's "Chilin battery," which utilizes a vertical stacking method with integrated coolant plates. "Each cell is separated by a second thinner plate filled with coolant," he explains, allowing for superior thermal control. This engineering feat enables rapid charging without the risk of thermal runaway. "They reckon they can get zero to eighty percent charge into one of these things in just 10 minutes," Borlace notes, a capability that directly addresses the primary anxiety of EV adoption.
The impact of this design is twofold: it increases volume efficiency by 72 percent and boosts energy density to 255 watt-hours per kilogram for standard cells. Borlace argues this allows manufacturers to free up high-density lithium for applications where it is truly necessary, while using sodium for stationary storage or lighter vehicles. "Replacing them with sodium ion could free up the more energy dense lithium technologies for applications where their high density is really necessary." This reframing suggests a future where different battery chemistries coexist, each optimized for a specific niche rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
The Silicon Frontier
Perhaps the most dramatic development Borlace covers comes from the United States, where Amprius Technologies is tackling the limits of energy density. The company has replaced the traditional graphite anode with a 100 percent silicon anode. "Silicon has the highest capacity for storing lithium among all the elements in the periodic table," Borlace writes, acknowledging the historical hurdle: silicon swells and cracks during charging. Amprius claims to have solved this with a "highly engineered web of pure silicon nano wires" that accommodates expansion without structural failure.
The results are staggering. "The folks at Amprius say they've achieved an independently verified cell density of no less than 500 watt hours per kilogram," Borlace reports. This figure is more than double that of Tesla's current cells and significantly higher than Ford's. While the immediate application is in aviation—serving clients like Airbus and the US Army—Borlace sees the automotive implications as inevitable. "Those two markets combined are projected to require about a hundred billion dollars worth of battery power by 2025." He notes that while the 500 watt-hour version is not yet in mass production, a new facility in Colorado is set to come online in 2025, signaling a serious commitment to scaling this technology.
These technologies on their own won't solve all our problems of course but specifically they will accelerate the move away from internal combustion engine vehicles and that is most certainly a major imperative in the green transition.
Bottom Line
Borlace's strongest contribution is his refusal to treat battery technology as a monolith; instead, he maps a diverse ecosystem where sodium handles cost, thermal architecture handles speed, and silicon handles range. The piece's greatest vulnerability is its optimism regarding the speed of manufacturing scale-up, particularly for the silicon anode technology, which has historically struggled with consistency. However, the convergence of these three distinct innovations suggests the tipping point for electric mobility is not a single event, but a compounding series of engineering victories happening right now.