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by maxnoe 983 days ago
Don't quote capacity. It is the correct tern, physically. Capacity is the amount of electrical charge something can store, Ah is unit of that. Not the natural unit though, that would be Coulomb (C).

Why use Charge and not energy? Because the voltage changes as the battery is discharging, so it's not as straight forward as just multiplying with the voltage.

3 comments

> It is the correct tern, physically.

Agreed, but not from a consumer perspective, where it is very confusing that a battery with half the capacity might have twice the energy due to differences in voltage.

From a consumer perspective, the battery capacity is the amount of energy, regardless of whether that is wrong.

I don't think "capacity" neccesarily has a concrete unit connected to it. I am pretty sure you could call both the charge and the energy in a battery its capacity.
> Not the natural unit though, that would be Coulomb (C).

To be pedantic, you mean SI unit. The natural unit of charge is the electron (e).