cells will definitely drift a little bit over time and they absolutely do need to be balanced. (or else overall pack capacity and discharge performance will be

cells will definitely drift a little bit over time and they absolutely do need to be balanced. (or else overall pack capacity and discharge performance will be lost - the discharge curves are not linear, when a cell is "dead" it drops rapidly, and that means you've effectively lost that chunk of your pack in terms of capacity and ability to discharge). it's not instant of course, so it's not like you need to do it every single time, but the trend over time is definitely for them to move away from ideal balance with multiple charge/discharge cycles rather than into balance