A new insight into the constant current-constant voltage (CC-CV) charge protocol based on the spherical diffusion model was presented. From the model, the CV-charge process compensates, to a large extent, the capacity loss in the CC process, and the capacity loss increases with increasing the charging rate and decreases with increasing the lithium-ion diffusion coefficient and using a smaller τ value (smaller particle-size and larger diffusion coefficient) and a lower charge rate will be helpful to decreasing the capacity loss. The results show that the CC and the CV charging processes, in some way, are complementary and the capacity loss during the CC charging process due to the large electrochemical polarization can be effectively compensated from the CV charging process.