How does battery degradation work?

Question

Let’s say I have a smartphone or an electric car, it loses 10% of the capacity.

Does it mean that the system consumes 10% more power, or the capacity just lowered, making me spend less electricity/money to charge?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Super simplified explanation;

Lets say you have 100 containers. You fill each of these contains with water every morning, and they’re used up by the next morning.

Now lets say one of the containers breaks, and (just for the sake of this explanation) you can’t replace that container without having to replace all the containers.

Now you can only hold 99 containers of water.

As a battery charges and discharges, it loses efficiency, tiny parts inside of the battery break down over charging cycles.