Renault Group has been openly interested in sodium-ion batteries for years without committing to them. With the group now midway through a cheaper-chemistry transition, the question of whether its smallest electric cars end up on sodium is worth separating into what is confirmed and what is not.
What is confirmed: the LFP switch is happening now
Renault is moving from NCM chemistry — nickel, cobalt, manganese, which it used across its electric range for years — to lithium iron phosphate. LFP is cheaper, and the point of the exercise is competitiveness against Chinese rivals.
The new Twingo is the first model with it: a 27.5 kWh air-cooled LFP pack supplied by CATL. The Mégane has recently added LFP cells as well, and entry versions of the R5, R4 and Scénic are due to follow in the coming months with cells from LG Energy Solution. The commercial effect is already visible — the new Mégane is priced €2,000 below its predecessor.
What is speculation: sodium next
Sodium-ion is the logical continuation of that logic, and the reasoning is straightforward. The only executive statement on record is old: in 2023, then-Dacia CEO Denis Le Vot said "perhaps the battery is sodium-based", adding that while critics argue sodium cells do not store much energy and are heavy, "they are cheap".
That is a three-year-old remark from someone no longer in that role, and Renault has confirmed no sodium-ion programme, no model and no date. Treat the model speculation accordingly: the Dacia Hipster quadricycle has been floated as a possible first application, with the Twingo and Spring named as candidates that "shouldn't be ruled out". None of that is company guidance.
Why the chemistry would suit these cars specifically
Sodium-ion's weakness is energy density, which makes it wrong for long-range cars and much less wrong for cheap city cars that carry small packs anyway. Its strengths land where the Twingo and Spring live.
| Property | CATL Naxtra claim |
|---|---|
| Cost vs LFP | Up to 30% cheaper |
| Capacity at −40 °C | Around 90% retained |
| Charging | 5C with roughly 5 °C temperature rise |
| Cycle life | Expected to exceed 10,000 cycles |
Cold-weather performance is the underrated one. A 27.5 kWh car losing a third of its range in a Central European winter is a genuinely compromised product; one holding 90% of capacity at −40 °C is not. And a supplier switch would be unusually easy here, because CATL already supplies the Twingo's LFP cells — the same vendor moving a small pack from one chemistry to another is a far smaller change than a new supplier relationship.
CATL expects sodium-ion to reach 30–40% of the market it addresses. That figure is a manufacturer's projection for its own product line, not an independent forecast.
What European buyers should watch
The signal to watch is not a Renault announcement but a cost one. Sodium-ion arrives in Europe's cheapest EVs the moment its landed cost per usable kilowatt-hour beats LFP's, and cell economics rather than product planning will set that date. That contest is the same one Europe's own battery industry is losing on cost — and if the cheapest chemistry for European city cars again comes from a Chinese supplier, that is the more consequential story than which badge gets it first.