These are words, literally, as well as cute (in some cases) this week in technology. sodium-pasco-scooter A little more on that below.

On the streets of the eastern city of Hangzhou, shiny electric mopeds catch the eye outside a shopping mall. The scooters, which cost £300 to £500 ($400 to $660), rely on sodium-based batteries made from an abundant element in sea salt. Fast-charging stations keep the batteries in the scooters full in as little as 15 minutes — and from empty to 80% full in that amount of time — for a use-the-chair, return-it mode envisioned for sharing scooters and peoples’ personal vehicles, said Yadea, a leading Chinese two-wheeler manufacturer that hosted the event set in early 2025. They have also established battery-swapping stations that allow riders to trade low batteries for fully charged ones by scanning a QR code.

Yadea is just one of a number of Chinese companies developing alternative battery technologies, underscoring the pace of development of China’s clean-tech industry. At a time when the world is still working to improve lithium-ion batteries, China has already launched a plan for mass production of sodium-ion batteries, in a bid to cut dependence on raw materials in short supply.

EXPANSION OF MARKETS - THE NA-ION BATTERY INDUSTRY IS MORE ACCEPTED
Chinese automakers were the first to produce cars with sodium-ion batteries, but those small, limited-range cars have made little impact so far. In April 2025 China’s largest battery maker, CATL, announced plans to mass produce sodium-ion batteries for trucks and cars under its new Naxtra brand, targeting a launch later this year. Chinese grid operators are, meanwhile, building energy storage stations that make use of sodium-ion batteries to support renewable energy, which is considered as a promising sector where this technology is expected to expand.

China’s multi-piece movement may in fact win it a race for global leadership in developing sodium-ion batteries, experts say. But how popular sodium-ion batteries will be is an open question.

The two-wheeler market is one of the industries driving heavy investment in sodium-ion batteries, especially in China, where the market is fiercely competitive and growing rapidly. Yadea, for its part, has already launched three models that run on sodium-ion batteries, one of several that its Hangzhou Huayu New Energy Research Institute is working on.

Twofold wheels: the faster sodium-ion technology is made for them
Two-wheelers, ubiquitous in Asia and known in China as “little electric donkeys,” are used most commonly for short trips around shops, offices or to metro stations. These vehicles require about half the energy density in their batteries as they operate over shorter distances at lower speeds than cars. Sodium-ion batteries have less energy density than lithium-ion ones, but they outperform old-fashioned lead-acid batteries, which are cheaper but also have shorter life and less energy.

The high number of two-wheelers that are sold in Asia also offers an economy of scale. In China alone, roughly 55 million electric two-wheelers were sold in 2023 — almost six times the number of all electric cars sold in that country that year.

Yadea aims to bring sodium-ion batteries to millions, in the form of two-wheelers and with infrastructure that does not depend on filing giant, metal fish out of the sea. In 2024, the company began a pilot program in Shenzhen with 150,000 food delivery riders who could exchange used batteries for fully charged ones at partner stations in 30 seconds.

The rapid rise of Yadea and another battery-swapping company, Dudu Huandian, has spurred Shenzhen to become a “battery-swapping city.” The city plans to have 20,000 charging and swapping pods for electric scooters in place by 2025 and ramp that figure up to 50,000 by 2027. Shenzhen already has a “battery-swapping park” and wants a five-minute one-stop swap location network for residents to use, with the Shenzhen Electric Bicycle Industry Association and local government cooperating to promote the system.