Chinese battery maker Eve Energy has decided to make a serious bet on sodium-ion technologies and has already begun building a dedicated headquarters. Work started on December 22 at Site D within the company’s main campus in Huizhou (Guangdong Province). About 1 billion yuan has been allocated for the project, equivalent to roughly $140 million at the current exchange rate.
The new facility is expected to cover about 90,000 sq. meters and will address several tasks at once: research and development, pilot batches, and subsequent industrial-scale production. A key capacity target has been set in advance—up to 2 GWh of sodium-ion batteries per year. In parallel, Eve Energy intends to work on safer solutions: the company mentions self-decomposing and non-flammable sodium batteries.
A separate part of the project is tied not to chemistry but to automation. The campus includes the Jinyuan robotics artificial intelligence and robotics center with an area of about 50,000 sq. meters. Its mission is to support the entire cycle: from R&D in robotics to implementation and mass production.
After construction is completed, the site is positioned as one of China’s leading bases for producing sodium batteries and integrating AI solutions into industry. At the same time, Eve Energy is already among the major players: according to CABIA, in November the company ranked 5th in China with 3.59 GWh of installed batteries and a 3.84% share. And SNE Research estimates its share of the global EV battery market for January–October at 2.6% (9th place).
Interest in sodium batteries overall is growing due to the availability of raw materials and reliable performance in cold weather. It is no coincidence that competitor CATL in April introduced the second generation of Naxtra sodium-ion cells, and last week reported the launch in Luoyang (Henan) of production lines for batteries using humanoid robots. There, a humanoid is already replacing people at the pre-assembly-line testing stage, and its work cycle is comparable to the pace of skilled employees (source: cnevpost.com).
