Is sodium-ion the next LFP?

Jard opens with the pattern behind the disruptions GetFocus has backtested: film against digital, Nokia against the smartphone, fuel cells against batteries. Each time, the winner was the technology improving fastest, often while it still performed worse. He then walks through the method: 30 years of MIT research showing every technology improves exponentially at its own rate, and the leading indicator in patent citation data, cycle time and knowledge flow, that makes that rate measurable early.

The core of the session applies it to batteries, across 254 datasets covering full cells, cathodes, anodes, electrolytes and manufacturing. Sodium-ion has improved faster than both LFP and NMC since 2023. Jard sets that curve next to the one LFP showed before it took share from NMC, plots each chemistry on the decision matrix, and closes with a 2030 forecast and next steps: pilots, supplier routes and the hard-carbon bottleneck.

The session closes with a live Q&A. Attendees asked whether trade secrets break the method, what happens when a fast improver still loses the market, how much regulation and politics bend the curve, whether patents lag too far behind to be useful, and whether Europe can build the value chain instead of China.