The incremental capacity (IC) analysis method is widely used to analyze the aging origins and state of health (SOH) of lithium ion batteries. This paper analyzes the technical difficulties during the application of the IC analysis method at first. A universal capacity model based on charging curve is then proposed, which not only inherits the advantages of IC analysis method but also avoids the tedious data preprocessing procedure, to estimate SOH of lithium ion batteries. The feasibility and accuracy of the model are demonstrated. To verify the accuracy and flexibility of the proposed capacity model, it is applied on different types of lithium ion batteries including LiFePO4, LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2, and Li4/3Ti5/3O4. Furthermore, the proposed capacity model is applied on the aged cells to validate the model accuracy during the whole life span of lithium ion batteries. The results show that the model error is less than 4% of the nominal capacity for each case. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.