Cell Design and Materials

Form Factor Chemistry Tradeoff Comparison in Products

200 Wh/kg 125 Wh/kg

230 Wh/kg

This side-by-side comparison highlights the critical trade-off in battery design: Energy Density vs. Everything Else Safety, Cost, Cycle Life). Safety does not scale with size of cell (“More Ah, more boomˮ) To get 8.3 kWh of energy, we can choose an 81 kg LFP pack (safer, cheaper, longer life) or a 41 kg/43kg NMC pack (higher energy, lighter weight). This highlights the fundamental tradeoff that many applications make in optimizing for the application. The choice depends entirely on the application. For maximum range/performance EVs, you choose the biggest NMC/NCA cells to maximize packing efficiency and overall pack density (with the least weight/volume). For stationary storage or heavy-duty vehicles where space/weight is less critical, LFP offers a cost-effective, longer lasting, and safer solution in addition to a higher total energy throughput.

Source: Redwood, ANL, Nature-lithium-ion battery cathode chemistry, Battery Report 20232024 Cell Chemistry, Battery Talk: Battery Application Break Down 12/31/2025 Version 3.0

Extracted from the PDF; charts and images may read imperfectly.