# FORD's Sodium-Sulphur Battery-What Happened?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fords-sodium-sulphur-battery-what-happened/652372>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 8, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fords-sodium-sulphur-battery-what-happened/652372 "2013-03-08T13:53:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fords-sodium-sulphur-battery-what-happened/652372/1 "2013-03-08T13:53:47Z")

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Back in the 1970’s, I remember reading about FORD Motor. Co. doing research into electric cars. Ford scientists developed a battery which used sodium and sulphur as the electrolyte. Unfortunately, the battery had to be kept at the melting point of sulphur. Was it a high capacity battery? Of was the thing simply too dangerous to be used in vehicles? Sodium is highly reactive, and molten sulphur pretty bad as well.

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**Author:** ![chargerrich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chargerrich/32/5399_2.png) [@chargerrich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chargerrich)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fords-sodium-sulphur-battery-what-happened/652372/2 "2013-03-08T14:02:01Z")

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I think you kind of answered your own question, but there is some good info [HERE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-sulfur_battery) on the difficulties, a few incidents and a newer version of the technology being worked on.