Although we use the word capacity in everyday conversation, it has a particular meaning to battery scientists, which can affect how we understand battery performance. In the simplest terms, a battery’s capacity describes how many electrons it can store for later use.
A battery’s capacity does not tell you the amount of energy it stores or the driving range it can deliver. Even with good capacity, it’s not possible to know how much energy the battery stores without knowing the voltage. This is because a higher voltage will deliver more energy for a given capacity. The math is simple:
Energy (Watt-hours) = Capacity (amp-hours) x Voltage (volts)
Let’s look at an example using the equation above — if a battery has a capacity of 3 amp-hours and an average voltage of 3.7 volts, the total energy stored in that battery is 11.1 watt-hours — 3 amp-hours (capacity) x 3.7 volts (voltage) = 11.1 watt-hours (energy). This is roughly enough to power a smartphone for a day[1]; thousands of such batteries make up an EV battery pack.
This diagram provides an analogy that illustrates the difference between capacity and energy. The capacity is represented by the amount of water at the top of the hill and the voltage by its elevation. Energy is extracted by the mill at the bottom of the hill. To know how much energy the mill will be able to use, you need to know both the altitude and the amount of water. In batteries, the principle is the same; voltage has as much influence on the energy of a battery as its capacity.
Cycle life: Energy or capacity?
EVs may see their driving range fade after many charging cycles (this effect is measured as cycle life). This fade can be caused by factors such as repeated fast-charging or extreme temperatures. This is why QuantumScape subjects its batteries to tests over many hundreds of cycles, with fast charging speeds and typical operating conditions.
Predicting a battery’s useful lifetime, then, requires understanding how the battery loses the ability to store energy over time (or many cycles). This is why at QuantumScape, we always report the discharge energy retention in our cycle life tests. This is a measure of how much energy the battery can deliver each cycle, and in our battery, this fades very slowly: after 800 cycles, our battery can still deliver well more than 80% of the original amount of energy.
When cycle life tests only include capacity retention, not energy retention, this only tells half the story. Without also knowing how the voltage changes over time, it’s impossible to tell the difference between a battery that can last hundreds of cycles and a battery that will be almost useless after just a few dozen.
This matters because accelerating the electric vehicle revolution requires new batteries that can deliver improved performance for drivers while also withstanding many years of charging cycles. A battery that can pack more energy into an EV isn’t useful if that energy fades quickly in a few months, and a battery that can charge quickly isn’t useful if fast charging compromises the lifetime and value of the vehicle. So, the next time you see battery reporting on cycle-life performance, make sure to check whether it is actual energy or just capacity. If only capacity is reported, you don’t have everything you need to understand how that battery would fade over time in a real-world EV.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information in this press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included in this press release, including, without limitation, regarding the development, timeline and performance of QuantumScape’s products and technology are forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Most of these factors are outside QuantumScape’s control and are difficult to predict. Information about factors that could materially affect QuantumScape is set forth under the “Risk Factors” section in QuantumScape’s most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 29, 2021 and available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.
Except as otherwise required by applicable law, QuantumScape disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statements, all of which are expressly qualified by the statements in this section, to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release. Should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and projections could different materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements.
Let’s say you have a 1-liter bottle of water and you pour all of its contents into another empty 1-liter bottle and then back to the original bottle. A few drops of water spill as you do so.
Fast charging is increasingly important to buyers of electric vehicles, but high-energy legacy lithium-ion batteries are still limited in how fast they can recharge. These limitations are largely due to fundamental constraints of battery design. QuantumScape’s technology has been designed to overcome many of these constraints, to unlock a step-change in fast-charging performance that has profound implications for EV adoption and the
Let’s say you have a 1-liter bottle of water and you pour all of its contents into another empty 1-liter bottle and then back to the original bottle. A few drops of water spill as you do so.
Fast charging is increasingly important to buyers of electric vehicles, but high-energy legacy lithium-ion batteries are still limited in how fast they can recharge. These limitations are largely due to fundamental constraints of battery design. QuantumScape’s technology has been designed to overcome many of these constraints, to unlock a step-change in fast-charging performance that has profound implications for EV adoption and the
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use
© 2022 QuantumScape Corporation
1730 Technology Drive, San Jose, CA 95110
info@quantumscape.com
