Worst-case Scenario Range Estimates for each battery type (my calculations)

[JoeUser]

I'm not sure why you have the lower limit at 20%... While it is true that EVs do not like to be stored below 20%, there is no issue with driving them below that number. I have no qualms arriving somewhere with 2% if there is a charger there. And while it is good practice not to leave an NMC battery above 80% if you don't need to, if you need more range there it's totally fine to charge to 100%. Some EVs even until very recently didn't have an option to set a charge limit, they are charged to 100% every day.

There is also some confusion about what 100% actually means. 4.2V is what cell manufacturers calls 'safe' 100%, but the carmaker calls 100% is normally below that number to preserve battery longevity (hence the 'gross capacity' and 'usable capacity' numbers you see sometimes). So academic studies on cell longevity cannot be directly applied to what you see on your screen.

I've been an EV mechanic for a long time, and my advise to people is to not stress about the battery. The OEM has done their homework, they are not going to let you do serious damage. I've seen babied packs fail at 40k, and I've seen uber-driver 100% daily packs just fine at 250k. Every study on EV batteries just shows that they are tougher and more resilient than we expected, and those studies are on old pack designs. New packs are much, much better.

 

[KevinRS]

I'm not sure why you have the lower limit at 20%... While it is true that EVs do not like to be stored below 20%, there is no issue with driving them below that number. I have no qualms arriving somewhere with 2% if there is a charger there. And while it is good practice not to leave an NMC battery above 80% if you don't need to, if you need more range there it's totally fine to charge to 100%. Some EVs even until very recently didn't have an option to set a charge limit, they are charged to 100% every day.

There is also some confusion about what 100% actually means. 4.2V is what cell manufacturers calls 'safe' 100%, but the carmaker calls 100% is normally below that number to preserve battery longevity (hence the 'gross capacity' and 'usable capacity' numbers you see sometimes). So academic studies on cell longevity cannot be directly applied to what you see on your screen.

I've been an EV mechanic for a long time, and my advise to people is to not stress about the battery. The OEM has done their homework, they are not going to let you do serious damage. I've seen babied packs fail at 40k, and I've seen uber-driver 100% daily packs just fine at 250k. Every study on EV batteries just shows that they are tougher and more resilient than we expected, and those studies are on old pack designs. New packs are much, much better.

Exactly. There is a lot of 3rd party and self upselling going on with range. Manufacturers build considerations like that 80/20 and just what type of cells they are using into their charge controllers and range estimates. Just as cell phone manufacturers are more recently limiting max charge and adjusting battery level indications for more longevity.
The 80/20 recommendation comes from when you'd have complete control and see where you are relative to the actual MAX charge and truly dead flat. Like if you were putting together a battery system for your house, and building it from cells, and programming the controller by the voltages of the cells.

Now with people worried about range, they end up with hybrids with smaller batteries and a gas tank, and never touch the gas until they decide they need to run the battery down to use the gas so it doesn't go bad. Same with BEVs buy 300+ miles of range, and drive 50 or less a day.