Nineteen of the thirty cell models in this catalogue carry a pending badge instead of a data sheet badge. That is not an oversight and it is not a data-entry backlog — it is the honest state of published documentation in this industry. Samsung SDI, LG Energy Solution and Panasonic do not publish a downloadable cell data sheet, so no value quoted for their models can be traced to a manufacturer document we hold.
What the two badges mean
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Data sheet | The manufacturer publishes a product data sheet for this model and we hold the file. Every value on the model page is quoted from it, with the measurement or cut-off condition where the document states one. |
| Pending | Values come from public sources and still need checking against a manufacturer document before you commit a design. Clicking the badge opens the model page, where the document can be requested. |
Eleven models carry the data sheet badge, all of them Molicel. Nineteen carry pending: eight Samsung SDI, five LG Energy Solution and six Panasonic. Three prismatic Panasonic cells and two older cylindrical types additionally have no published continuous discharge figure at all, and no application link is offered for those — without a current rating there is no duty cycle to reason about.
Why the manufacturers do not publish
These three sell cells into closed automotive and industrial programmes under contract, and the cell data sheet is part of that commercial package rather than a marketing asset. Samsung SDI's cylindrical battery page currently returns a 404; LG and Panasonic publish product information without a downloadable cell data sheet. A spec sheet that circulates for those brands is usually assembled by a distributor or a cell-broker from measurements and secondary sources. Some of those are careful and some are not.
This is the part worth internalising: the absence of a published document is not evidence that a value is wrong. It is evidence that nobody outside the manufacturer can prove it is right.
What to do with a pending value
Three options, in ascending order of cost:
- Design with margin. If a cell is quoted at 10 A continuous and your load is 6 A, the pending status matters much less than it would at 9 A. Margin is cheaper than a documentation programme.
- Ask for the document before you quote. For a given model and quantity, we will say what we can put in writing. Sometimes the answer is a manufacturer document under NDA, sometimes it is a test report on a specific lot.
- Measure it yourself. For a pack programme, buying samples and running your own capacity, impedance and thermal characterisation replaces the question entirely. It is the only route that ends with a number you own.
The cell selection guide walks through where provenance sits in the ordering of a selection decision — after load and thermal, before price. If you are comparing two shortlisted models where one has a data sheet and one does not, that difference belongs in the comparison, not in a footnote.
What we will not do
We will not promote a pending value to verified because a number appears on three distributor pages, and we will not fill a gap by averaging the values for similar cells. When a manufacturer document arrives for a pending model, that model's page changes and the badge with it. Until then, the badge is the finding.
Last updated: October 2026
