Chinese commercial vehicle manufacturer FAW Jiefang and battery developer HiNa Battery have completed long-term testing of sodium-ion batteries fuelling electric trucks in harsh conditions, where temperatures dropped to as low as -40 degree Celsius.

Despite the conditions, the battery retained more than 90% of its usable capacity.

The trials are likely to have long-term implications for the materials handling sector, which faces the same issues as road vehicles operating in sub-freezing conditions.

Historically, conventional lithium batteries drain quickly in these conditions.

Under the trial, a J6P pure-electric tractor truck operated for almost seven months, fitted with a 339 kWh sodium-ion battery, and covered more than 15,000km in that time.

The sodium-ion battery boasts fast-charging (20-25 minutes) and demonstrated a life cycle above 8,000 cycles under fast-charging conditions, which is a vast improvement on traditional industry standards.

It has a nominal capacity of 10Ah and weighs under 270g.

However, sodium-ion batteries have significantly lower energy density compared to lithium-ion batteries, requiring more space to realise the same storage capacity.

HiNa Battery states its current generation of sodium-ion batteries achieves an energy density of more than165 Wh/kg at the cell level.