The rechargeable battery myth

It's common knowledge that older rechargeable batteries have a limited lifetime. They can only be charged so many times before they won't "hold a charge" any more. This is often referred to as the battery "memory effect." This was a well known problem with Nickle-Cadmium (NiCad) and Nickle-Metal Hydride (NiMH). But for some reason, a lot of people believe this is not a problem with Lithium-ion batteries. This is the "myth" that I'm referring to, that Lithium-ion batteries do not suffer from this problem.

Unfortunately, Lithium-ion batteries do suffer from this problem. The good news is they are less susceptible than NiCad or NiMH, but the problem does still exist. If you don't believe me, find a 5 year-old laptop with Lithium-ion batteries and see how good a charge they hold - chances are they only hold a fraction of their initial charge. I won't get into the technical reasons behind why rechargeable batteries suffer this problem. But I wanted to debunk this myth about Lithium-ion batteries.

There's nothing you can do to prevent this from occurring to a battery, but there are several things you can do to slow it down. I've read a lot of crazy things on the Internet such as freezing and thawing your batteries to "restore" them to working order. These various "techniques" sound far-fetched to me. But one technique that does work is to be mindful of your battery, and how and when you charge it. The best thing you can do is run the battery almost until it's dead, then fully charge the battery back up. The worst thing you could do is run the battery for a few minutes and then charge it again.

One of the most common battery-powered devices are laptop computers. So the best way to maximum the life of your laptop battery is to run the battery until it is very low; then and only then do you charge the battery. And don't stop the charge cycle until the battery is fully charged. If you want/need to run the laptop off AC power before the battery is discharged, then remove the battery while running off AC power. By doing this you will extend the life of your battery.