Major automotive battery maker Clarios International of Glendale is partnering with a Swedish company in developing next-generation sodium-ion batteries made from salt, wood iron and air.
While Clarios has built a $10 billion annual revenue business making lead-acid batteries and more recently low-voltage lithium batteries, the company’s executives said they recognize the need to advance in emerging technologies for automakers and the aftermarket.
Clarios created a partnership with Altris of Uppsala, Sweden, which the companies said is a leader in sodium-ion cathode material and battery cell technology.
“It is a very unique solution that we are very excited about,” Clarios president and CEO Mark Wallace said Tuesday of Altris in a virtual presentation during CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas.
The companies said their long-term goal is to develop a detailed production plan for low-voltage battery systems using the sodium-ion cells. The companies believe mass production of such batteries would represent an important advancement in automotive battery technology and an important step in supporting battery-recycling goals of the automotive industry.
"With this partnership, we’re able to access every third vehicle driven globally and accelerate the green transition,” Altris CEO Björn Mårlid said in a press release.
Every vehicle, including hybrid electric and electric vehicles, requires a low-voltage energy source to power critical systems and functions. Clarios sells over 150 million low-voltage batteries per year to automakers and the retail aftermarket.
The companies did not disclose financial details of their development agreement.
Clarios already is working with an undisclosed global automaker in Europe to bring to market a low-voltage sodium-ion battery by the end of this decade or sooner, Clarios executives said during the CES presentation.
Clarios brings to the Altris collaboration the Glendale-based firm's extensive experience with low-voltage systems within the automotive sector. Clarios will play a leading role in defining and optimizing specifications for the sodium-ion cells for automakers, said Federico Morales Zimmermann, vice president and general manager of global customers, products and engineering at Clarios.
The use of sodium in batteries provides a sustainable source of raw materials, Clarios said. Those raw materials are unlike lithium batteries that rely on nickel, cobalt and what the European Commission and other organizations call "conflict minerals" from countries where the minerals sometimes finance armed conflict or are mined using forced labor.
Ultimately Clarios’ automaker customers will determine the pace at which the sodium-ion batteries are included in their vehicles, Clarios executives said.
“We are a way from production getting fully launched,” Wallace said.
Clarios‘ existing lineup of advanced battery technologies including absorbent glass mat (AGM) batteries remain the preferred next-generation low-voltage solution by automakers, the company said in a recent prospectus. Those technologies are currently specified into all powertrain configurations, including mild-hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles, the company said.
Clarios said it’s also one of the world’s largest low-voltage lithium-ion battery manufacturers for the automotive industry, shipping over 200,000 of those batteries per year.
The company has its headquarters offices and laboratories in Glendale and plants in the United States, Mexico, Germany, Czech Republic, South Korea, China and Brazil.
Clarios is tangentially involved in another sodium-ion batteries venture. The company leases space at its facility in Holland, Michigan, to Natron Energy Inc. of California under a strategic agreement the companies announced in May 2022 for producing Natron's sodium-ion batteries.
