Gross kWh, net kWh, LFP, NMC, 800V, cell-to-pack, 70 per cent state of health. The battery carries more jargon than any other part of an EV, and a few of those terms genuinely change how you should charge and what your warranty protects. Here's the lot in plain English, with the technical claims checked against a maker's own document, a regulator or a published lab study, and the cars linked to their pages in our database.
Key Takeaways
- Usable capacity is the number that drives range. In the cars below where we hold both figures, makers hold back roughly 3 to 8 per cent of the gross capacity.
- Chemistry changes the charging advice. Makers differ on charging to 100 per cent, so follow your own manual.
- 800V is a means, not a guarantee. It lets a car take high power at lower current, but some 400V cars we list out-charge some 800V ones.
- Heat and time at high charge age a battery most. Fast charging adds wear, but real driving is kinder to cells than old lab tests suggested.
- Read the warranty for the percentage. Most run 8 years or 160,000km here, and many guarantee 70 per cent capacity.
A Battery Pack Is a System, Not a Box of Cells
The smallest working unit is the cell: a sealed can or pouch with a positive electrode, a negative electrode and electrolyte. A car needs hundreds or thousands of them, so traditionally cells were grouped into modules, and modules were bolted into the pack, the big flat case under the floor.
That middle layer is disappearing. CATL describes its cell-to-pack approach as technology that "directly integrates cells into packs without modules", and says its third-generation design raised the share of the pack's volume that is actually cells from 55 per cent in its first-generation cell-to-pack battery to 72 per cent. BYD's Blade battery uses the same idea with long, flat cells arranged straight into the pack; BYD says the design increases space utilisation by 50 per cent. Those are the makers' own figures.
Two more things turn a pile of cells into something you can drive every day:
- The battery management system (BMS). Kia describes it as a system that "regulates temperature while also monitoring the health of individual cells".
- Thermal management. Cells have a comfortable temperature band, and the pack has plumbing to keep them there. Tesla's Australian Model 3 manual, for instance, warns owners not to remove the battery coolant filler cap, which tells you the pack runs its own coolant circuit.
Gross vs Usable Capacity: The Buffer You Never See
Spec sheets quote battery size in kilowatt-hours, but there are two different numbers and brochures don't always say which one they mean. Gross (or nominal) is what the cells can hold. Usable (or net) is what the car lets you draw. Porsche's Australian newsroom, for example, gives the Taycan Turbo GT as "105 kWh gross capacity / 97 kWh net capacity", and Audi Australia says the Q4 e-tron uses "an 82 kWh battery (77 kWh net)".
The difference is held back by the maker. Keeping cells away from the very top and very bottom of their range is consistent with what the lab research below says about ageing: Sandia National Laboratories found that a wider state-of-charge window increases the rate of capacity fade.
This table covers only on-sale cars we hold both a gross and a usable figure for. It's a selection, not a ranking.
| Car (variant) | Gross | Usable | Held back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audi Q6 e-tron quattro SUV | 100kWh | 94.9kWh | 5.1% |
| Audi Q4 e-tron 45 e-tron | 82kWh | 77kWh | 6.1% |
| Audi e-tron GT S e-tron GT | 105kWh | 97kWh | 7.6% |
| Porsche Macan 4 | 100kWh | 95kWh | 5.0% |
| Mercedes-Benz EQA EQA250+ | 70.5kWh | 66.5kWh | 5.7% |
| Volvo EX90 Plus Twin Motor | 111kWh | 107kWh | 3.6% |
| Skoda Elroq 85 Select | 82kWh | 77kWh | 6.1% |
| smart #1 Pro+ | 66kWh | 62kWh | 6.1% |
| MG MG4 Essence 64 | 64kWh | 61.7kWh | 3.6% |
| Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium RWD | 91kWh | 88kWh | 3.3% |
Held back = (gross minus usable) divided by gross. CarSorted database, on-sale battery electric variants, 1 October 2026.
When comparing two cars, compare usable against usable.
Chemistry: LFP or Nickel?
Every EV we list with a stated chemistry uses a lithium-ion battery. The big split is in the positive electrode (the cathode).
- LFP (lithium iron phosphate). Sandia's energy storage handbook says LFP has a lower voltage and "a correspondingly lower energy density" than the other popular cathodes. In practice that means more kilograms for the same kWh. The same handbook says LFP's low cost "stems from the absence of metals like Co" (cobalt), and that it is more thermally stable because its phosphorus-oxygen bond is strong. In a Sandia cycling study published in 2020, the LFP cells tested lasted 2,500 to 9,000 full cycles, against 200 to 2,500 for the NMC cells and 250 to 1,500 for the NCA cells under the same test conditions.
- Nickel-based (NMC or NCA). These pack more energy into the same space, and LG Energy Solution says it prioritises high-nickel cells for the performance segment, where power output and fast charging matter most. Sandia notes that thermal stability and long-term cycling remain a concern for high-nickel NMC and NCA cells, "particularly due to the energetic thermal runaway of these cells when exposed to abnormal conditions".
How that splits across the cars we list:
| Chemistry we hold | Variants | Models | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nickel-based (NMC / NCM) | 162 | 76 | Kia EV6 GT-Line RWD, Polestar 3 Dual Motor, Tesla Model 3 Long Range RWD |
| LFP | 72 | 37 | BYD Sealion 7 Premium, Tesla Model 3 RWD, MG MG4 Urban Essence 43 |
| "Lithium-ion", chemistry not stated | 32 | 16 | Maker lists lithium-ion only |
| No data | 41 | 21 | No data |
CarSorted database, 307 on-sale battery electric variants, 1 October 2026. Nine models appear in two rows because their variants use different chemistries. None of the 307 variants is listed with a sodium-ion battery.
In our data the Tesla Model 3 RWD is listed as LFP and the Tesla Model 3 Long Range RWD as NMC. Same car, different chemistry, so check the variant.
What it means for charging to 100 per cent
This is where chemistry actually changes your routine, and the only reliable guide is your own manual. BYD Australia's Sealion 7 owner's handbook (we list the BYD Sealion 7 Premium as LFP) says: "It is recommended to fully charge the vehicle at a regular basis (at least once a week)". Tesla's Australian Model 3 manual takes a different line for some cars: "For vehicles with a recommended daily charge limit of 80%, keep your daily charge limit at about 80. Save 100% for those times when you've got a long drive ahead of you." The same manual also says to avoid leaving the battery at or near 0 or 100 per cent for long periods. If your car shows a recommended limit, use it.
Cell Shapes: Cylindrical, Prismatic, Pouch and Blade
Chemistry is what's inside; format is the container. LG Energy Solution says it became the first global battery maker to offer all three main form factors: pouch, cylindrical and prismatic.
- Cylindrical cells come in standardised sizes, which LG says gives them broad applicability. Panasonic says its 4680 cell has five times the capacity of its 2170 cell, which reduces the number of cells needed for the same pack.
- Pouch cells are flat, flexible packets. LG says pouch cells are "designed to minimize constraints on size and shape".
- Prismatic cells, the third format, use a rigid rectangular case.
- Blade is BYD's name for its long, flat LFP cell, built to be arranged straight into the pack.
You'll rarely see cell format on a spec sheet, and we don't track it.
400V vs 800V: What It Changes at a Fast Charger
Power is voltage multiplied by current. Double the voltage and you can deliver the same power with half the current. Porsche puts it plainly in its Taycan technical material: by doubling the voltage, "currents can be reduced in the vehicle while the power output remains the same", so cables can be thinner, which Porsche says saves around four kilograms in the Taycan.
Hyundai Motor Group says E-GMP uses an 800V charging system as standard and that the IONIQ 5 can charge from 10 to 80 per cent in 18 minutes on an ultra-fast charger. It also uses a patented boost converter so that charge "from a 400V source is boost-converted into 800V", which is how an 800V car still works on older 400V chargers. (Our row for the Hyundai IONIQ 5 RWD is listed as 800V but we hold no DC peak figure for it, so that's no data rather than a number.)
The catch is that 800V doesn't guarantee the fastest charging. In our data the Tesla Model 3 Long Range RWD is listed as 400V with a 250kW DC peak, higher than several 800V cars below. And any car only charges as fast as the charger in front of it can supply. Here are the 800V models we list, with the DC peak we hold for the linked variant.
CarSorted database, 1 October 2026: we hold 27 models (78 on-sale variants) as 800V, and 26 are shown. The Range Rover Electric is left out because the charging figure we hold for it has not been reconciled with the maker's Australian page. We also hold 144 variants as 400V, and 85 on-sale EV variants have no architecture figure, so they are not in this table. Peaks are the figures we hold from each maker's documents: claimed maximums, not a guaranteed rate, and not all re-checked this month.
Heat, Cold and Preconditioning
The cold problem is real. In a US Department of Energy analysis with Argonne National Laboratory, battery EV range dropped 41 per cent in typical cold conditions of 20 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 7 Celsius), compared with 10 per cent for petrol cars. The main reason was cabin heating; the secondary reason was that cold battery chemistry gives "less usable battery energy". The same report found a heat pump can cut heating and cooling system power by 38 per cent at that temperature.
The fix for cold charging is preconditioning: warming the pack before you arrive at a fast charger. Hyundai Australia says the IONIQ 6 EPIQ's battery conditioning system can heat the battery "for improved DC charging and driving performance", and can pre-heat it when a DC charger is set as the navigation destination. Kia's Australian EV4 owner's manual (the Kia EV4 Earth is one variant we list) adds the honest trade-off: the winter mode improves DC charging performance, but "the driving distance may be reduced as more energy is required to increase battery temperature."
Want to see what temperature and speed do to your own range? Try our range estimator.
Why Fast Charging Slows After About 80 Per Cent
Watch a DC charger and the kW figure falls away as the percentage climbs. It's not the charger being stingy. EVs charge with what a joint Argonne, Idaho and NREL paper calls the industry's "widely adopted" constant-current, constant-voltage method. The car pushes steady current until the pack voltage reaches its limit, and after that the "current must then be tapered so as not to exceed the maximum voltage". That taper arrives earlier when you fast charge, because voltage rises quickly under high current.
There's also a damage reason. The same paper explains that lithium plating (metallic lithium building up on the negative electrode instead of slotting into it) becomes a risk as cell voltage climbs towards full, and that plating increases with higher current and lower temperature. Tesla's Australian manual sums up the outcome in one line: the charge rate is decreased "when the Battery is too cold, the Battery's charge is nearly full, and when the Battery conditions change with usage and age."
Our EV charging guide covers the networks, speeds and costs.
Degradation: What Actually Wears a Battery Out
All lithium-ion batteries lose capacity over time. Sandia's handbook splits ageing into two parts that add together: calendar ageing, from chemical side reactions that happen even when the car is parked, and cycle ageing, from the stress of charging and discharging. Calendar ageing is "largely influenced by the state-of-charge (SOC) and temperature", and speeds up as temperature rises.
What that means in practice:
- Heat matters. Tesla's manual advises against leaving the car above 60 degrees or below minus 30 for more than 24 hours at a time.
- Sitting at a high charge matters. Tesla recommends storing the car at around 50 per cent if it will sit for a long time. An Idaho National Laboratory study found that delaying a fast charge to minimise rest at a high state of charge was better than fast charging with no delay.
- DC fast charging adds some wear. In that same Idaho National Laboratory test on Nissan Leaf packs, where every charge was either AC or DC fast charging, the fast-charged packs lost 28.1 per cent of capacity by the end of testing against 23.1 per cent for the AC-charged packs. A real difference, but not a cliff.
- Real driving is kinder than lab tests. A 2024 Stanford-led study in Nature Energy cycled 92 commercial EV cells for two years on realistic, stop-start profiles and found up to 38 per cent more full cycles at end of life than under the constant-current tests labs traditionally use. Old lab figures can understate real-world life.
And don't run it flat and leave it: Tesla's manual warns that discharging to 0 per cent may damage components, and those costs aren't covered by warranty.
Safety and Thermal Runaway, Without the Drama
Sandia defines thermal runaway as an accelerating release of heat inside a cell from a chain of chemical reactions, ending in an uncontrollable rise in temperature. Propagation is when that spreads from one cell to its neighbours. Chemistry plays a part here: as noted above, Sandia says LFP is more thermally stable than the metal-oxide cathodes. BYD says its Blade battery gave off no smoke or fire in its own nail penetration test, while its ternary (nickel) comparison battery exceeded 500 degrees. That's BYD's test, not an independent one.
Australia regulates this. Australian Design Rule 109 sets electrical safety requirements for vehicles with an electric power train and a rechargeable battery, including protection from high-voltage contact and electrolyte spills. ADR 109/00 applied from 1 November 2024 for new models and 1 November 2025 for all vehicles. ADR 109/01, which adopts UN Regulation 100 (series 03), applies from 1 November 2025 for new models and 1 November 2028 for all vehicles. That version requires the battery or vehicle system to warn occupants so they can get out, or 5 minutes before a hazardous situation inside the cabin caused by thermal propagation from a single cell's thermal runaway. A 2024 UN working-party briefing notes that under R100/03 makers demonstrate this through risk assessment rather than a mandatory physical propagation test.
Tesla's Australian manual adds two practical rules: never open or tamper with the pack, and treat a car that has been submerged (especially in salt water) as if it has been in an accident.
Battery Warranties in Australia
The detail that matters most is the capacity guarantee. A 70 per cent guarantee means that if capacity drops below 70 per cent of original within the term, the maker repairs or replaces the battery. Without a stated percentage, it's less clear what counts as too much normal fade. Here are the terms each brand publishes on its Australian site:
| Brand | Battery term | Capacity guarantee |
|---|---|---|
| BYD | 8 yrs / 160,000km | At least 70% |
| Tesla | 8 yrs / 160,000km (Model 3 and Model Y Premium RWD); 8 yrs / 192,000km (Long Range, Performance, Model Y L) | Minimum 70% |
| Kia | 7 yrs / 150,000km before MY2027; 8 yrs / 160,000km from MY2027 and for every EV4 | 70% |
| MG | 7 yrs / 150,000km (cars registered from 1 July 2025) | 70% |
| Hyundai | 8 yrs / 160,000km | Not stated on the pages we checked |
| Genesis | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 70%, with regular state-of-health checks |
| Toyota (bZ4X) | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 70%, with regular health checks |
| BMW | 8 yrs / 160,000km | Covers "excessive capacity loss"; no % stated |
| MINI | 8 yrs / 160,000km (current-gen electric models, first registered from 1 April 2026) | At least 70% |
| Mercedes-Benz | 8 yrs / 160,000km; EQE and EQS 10 yrs / 250,000km | Not stated on the pages we checked |
| Audi | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 70% of net capacity |
| Porsche | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 80% for 3 yrs / 60,000km, then 70% |
| Volkswagen | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 70% |
| Volvo | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 70% |
| Polestar | 8 yrs / 160,000km | 70% state of health |
| Zeekr | 8 yrs / 160,000km private (150,000km commercial) | 70% state of health |
| Ford | 8 yrs / 160,000km | Not stated on the pages we checked |
| Land Rover (Range Rover Electric) | 8 yrs / 160,000km | Not stated on the pages we checked |
From each brand's Australian website or warranty document, checked 1 October 2026. Terms change and often differ for commercial or rideshare use, so confirm the current terms for your exact car and model year before you buy.
A few things worth knowing before you sign:
- Model year matters. Kia's terms changed with MY2027, and MINI's depend on the registration date. Two cars with the same badge can carry different cover.
- Some guarantees have conditions. Toyota and Genesis tie the capacity guarantee to regular battery health checks in the service schedule.
- Replacements may not be new. Volvo's Australian terms say a replacement may use reconditioned cells or packs.
End of Life: Second Life and Recycling in Australia
Australia's 2023 National Electric Vehicle Strategy committed the federal government to research to inform "an EV and other large format battery recycling, reuse and stewardship initiative". The Strategy's 2024-25 annual update says that research phase has been completed and is going through peer review. As at October 2026, there is no national EV battery stewardship scheme in place.
The existing battery scheme doesn't cover EVs either. The Battery Stewardship Council's B-cycle 2.0 design (December 2024) lists battery electric and hybrid vehicle batteries among those not covered, saying EV batteries would need "an alternate bespoke approach". Batteries aren't on the federal environment department's current Minister's Priority List for product stewardship either.
The starting point is low. CSIRO reports that only 10 per cent of Australia's lithium-ion battery waste was recycled in 2021. That figure covers all lithium-ion waste, not just car batteries.
What's Actually Coming vs What's Still a Press Release
Battery news is full of breakthroughs. Here's how to read the ones you'll see most, with the status in each maker's own words:
- Sodium-ion. CATL says its Naxtra sodium-ion cell reaches 175Wh/kg, comparable to LFP, and retains 90 per cent of usable power at minus 40 degrees. In February 2026 CATL and Changan unveiled what they called the first mass-production passenger car with sodium-ion batteries, due on sale (in China) by mid-2026, and CATL says full-scale mass production is set for the end of 2026. None of the cars we list in Australia uses one.
- Faster-charging LFP. CATL claims its Shenxing LFP battery adds 400km of range in a 10-minute charge. That's a maker's claim under its own test conditions, and it needs a charger and car that can deliver it.
- Solid-state. Toyota says it is aiming for a market launch of cars with all-solid-state batteries in 2027-28. Samsung SDI says its all-solid-state batteries are under development to enter mass production by the second half of 2027. Both are targets, not products you can buy.
- Bigger cylindrical cells. Panasonic says it has completed preparations to mass-produce its 4680 cell and is coordinating shipping dates with customers.
Buy for the battery in the car in front of you, not for a chemistry that's still a date on a slide.
The Short Version for Shoppers
Compare usable kWh against usable kWh, check which chemistry your exact variant uses and what its manual says about charging to 100 per cent, look at DC peak alongside the 10 to 80 per cent time, and read the battery warranty for the capacity percentage as well as the years and kilometres.
Ready to compare? Start with our best electric cars in Australia, weigh up running costs in EV vs hybrid, or browse every electric car we list.
Sources
Technical sources, all checked 1 October 2026: Tesla Model 3 Owner's Manual (Australia), High Voltage Battery Information; BYD Australia Sealion 7 Owner's Handbook 2025; BYD Blade Battery pages (byd.com); CATL cell-to-pack, Naxtra, Changan and Shenxing announcements (catl.com); LG Energy Solution press releases and 2025 ESG report; Panasonic Energy solutions page and Integrated Report 2025; Hyundai Motor Group E-GMP stories (hyundaimotorgroup.com); Hyundai Australia IONIQ 6 press release; Kia EV4 Owner's Manual MY26 (Australia); Kia battery technology page (kia.com/uk); Porsche Taycan technology press kit and Porsche Newsroom Australia; Audi Magazine Australia (Q4 e-tron). Standards and government: Vehicle Standard (Australian Design Rule 109/00) and (Australian Design Rule 109/01), legislation.gov.au, incorporating UN Regulation No. 100; UNECE GRSP-75-26 (May 2024); Department of Infrastructure news, 12 January 2024; Green Vehicle Guide; DCCEEW National Electric Vehicle Strategy (2023) and 2024-25 annual update; DCCEEW Minister's Priority List; Battery Stewardship Council B-cycle 2.0 Final Scheme Design (December 2024); CSIRO battery recycling. Research: Sandia National Laboratories, DOE Energy Storage Handbook ch. 3 and ESS Safety Roadmap (2024); Preger et al., J. Electrochem. Soc. 167 (2020); Geslin et al., Nature Energy 10 (2024/25); Tanim et al. (Idaho National Laboratory), J. Power Sources 381 (2018); Ahmed et al., J. Power Sources 367 (2017); US DOE Vehicle Technologies Office program record on cold-temperature BEV performance (2024). Warranty terms from each brand's Australian website or warranty booklet. Car figures from the CarSorted database, 1 October 2026.