Anyone measured actual battery degradation after a full year of daily cycling?

[mia_lars]

I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly. Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 reportedly carries roughly a 2.3 kWh pack and manages about two hours of dynamic work, while Unitree's H1 runs a smaller 0.864 kWh pack good for under four hours of largely static operation - a useful illustration of how battery size and workload type both drive runtime. Fast charging accelerates capacity fade over repeated cycles, so fleet operators generally have to choose between minimizing downtime (fast charging) and maximizing pack lifespan (slower charging or swap-based approaches) rather than getting both for free.

[samuel.campbell8]

Thanks for laying this out, genuinely useful. A BMS (battery management system) has to guard against transient current spikes from sudden gait changes or lifting motions, not just steady-state draw - peak current headroom and fast-acting protection logic matter as much as total capacity for real-world duty cycles.

[karentaylor]

I don't think that's quite right, for what it's worth. Idle/standing power draw is often surprisingly close to a meaningful fraction of active walking power draw once you account for onboard compute, sensors, and balance-holding torque - 'doing nothing' still costs real energy on a humanoid. Battery placement (torso-centered vs backpack vs distributed through the limbs) is a real tradeoff between center-of-mass/balance considerations and thermal/cooling access - a torso-centered pack helps balance but is harder to cool than a more exposed backpack placement.

[joseph.robinson]

@karentaylor Not sure I fully agree here. Battery placement (torso-centered vs backpack vs distributed through the limbs) is a real tradeoff between center-of-mass/balance considerations and thermal/cooling access - a torso-centered pack helps balance but is harder to cool than a more exposed backpack placement.

[hill23]

@joseph.robinson Here's the relevant bit as far as I understand it: Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 reportedly carries roughly a 2.3 kWh pack and manages about two hours of dynamic work, while Unitree's H1 runs a smaller 0.864 kWh pack good for under four hours of largely static operation - a useful illustration of how battery size and workload type both drive runtime. Distributed power architectures (multiple smaller packs or local capacitor buffering near high-draw actuators) can reduce peak current demands on the main bus and improve fault isolation, at the cost of added complexity versus a single central pack.

[mohammed64]

@hill23 I don't think that's quite right, for what it's worth. A BMS (battery management system) has to guard against transient current spikes from sudden gait changes or lifting motions, not just steady-state draw - peak current headroom and fast-acting protection logic matter as much as total capacity for real-world duty cycles.

[robertmiller]

@mohammed64 One nitpick - Hot-swappable battery packs solve the runtime bottleneck for continuous operations (like a 24/7 warehouse shift) without needing a much bigger, heavier pack, but they add mechanical complexity, a failure-prone connector interface, and logistics overhead for managing spare packs.

[diego.moore6]

@robertmiller This is exactly the kind of context I was looking for. Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 reportedly carries roughly a 2.3 kWh pack and manages about two hours of dynamic work, while Unitree's H1 runs a smaller 0.864 kWh pack good for under four hours of largely static operation - a useful illustration of how battery size and workload type both drive runtime.

[sven.wilson4]

@diego.moore6 This matches something I went through recently. Battery placement (torso-centered vs backpack vs distributed through the limbs) is a real tradeoff between center-of-mass/balance considerations and thermal/cooling access - a torso-centered pack helps balance but is harder to cool than a more exposed backpack placement.

[scott21]

This is a great summary, thanks. Idle/standing power draw is often surprisingly close to a meaningful fraction of active walking power draw once you account for onboard compute, sensors, and balance-holding torque - 'doing nothing' still costs real energy on a humanoid.