Also the early Nissan Leafs, pioneers in the mass-market EV space, had batteries with only air cooling and which experienced significant degradation.

More modern EVs with full liquid thermal management and newer cell revisions and chemistries seem to be holding up much better over time.

Some chemistries like LFP have even greater cycle and calendar life in return for a bit less energy density. Ford and GM are both betting big on these for their future entry-level EVs and I think they will end up being a common choice where maximum range isn't the customer's primary concern.

>Also the early Nissan Leafs, pioneers in the mass-market EV space, had batteries with only air cooling and which experienced significant degradation.

Don't forget that beside the chemistry issue in hot environments, the original Leaf only had a 24 kWh battery, so you'd have a lot more cycles than say a 60 kWh or 90 kWh battery. If you assume it is good for 1,000 equivalent charge cycles, and assume you 3.5 miles/kWh, than your 24 kWh battery would be good for 84,000 miles. A 60 kWh pack would be good for 210,000 miles, and a 90 kWh pack is good for 315,000 miles. A new Chevrolet Silverado EV has a 200 kWh pack (which, if you can squeeze out 2 miles/kWh, would be good for 400,000 miles).

And with a small battery it is more likely that you'd need to charge up to 100% and discharge closer to 0%, which is also harder on the battery.

>>Also the early Nissan Leafs, pioneers in the mass-market EV space, had batteries with only air cooling and which experienced significant degradation.

Volkswagen e-Ups, Seat Mii Electric and Skoda CitiGo EV(same car really), all have an air-cooled battery, been on the market for 13 years now and there's no significant degradation reported(not in a systematic way like with the Leafs). I think it's just different chemistry to what the Leafs were using.

> Ford and GM are both betting big on these for their future entry-level EVs and I think they will end up being a common choice where maximum range isn't the customer's primary concern.

A lot of people think they need way more range than they actually do, especially people that have decent charging at home. The think they need long range for the occasional long road trip but even there range is less important than they think it is. For long road trips charging speed is more important.

Briefly, consider a 3000 mile road trip. If your average highway speed is 75 mph that's 40 hours of driving. On top of that 40 hours you have whatever stoppage time there is to refuel/recharge. Let's put a lower bound on that.

Suppose you are in a car that can go 200 miles between stops. When you reach the first stop there are 2800 miles left, so over the course of all future stops on the trip you have to add a total of 2800 miles worth of fuel/charge. Let's say your car is an EV that can add 1000 miles in an hour of charging. That's 2.8 hours of total charging time for the trip.

Someone else in a 300 miles EV but that only adds 300 miles in an hour will first stop with 2700 miles left. They have to add 2700 miles of charge over the course of the trip, which takes 9 hours.

They will have fewer total stops (9) than the 200 mile range fast charging car (14) which favors the long range car because each stop has some overhead that is not spent actually charging but that is unlikely to be enough to make up for the slower charging car spending 6.2 more total hours actually charging.

Where the 300 mile slower charging car shines compared to the 200 mile fast charging car would be for people who have frequent trips like Los Angeles to San Diego and back. The 300 car could do that on one charge. The 200 mile car would would need a charge stop.

Similar for people who have trips like Los Angeles to Los Vegas where they will stay overnight. The 300 mile car could do that with about 10% to spare and then charge at your hotel. The 200 mile car would need a charge stop before reaching Vegas, then you should charge at the hotel, and then you will need one other on the way back. (If you charge to full on the first charge stop you can skip the one at the hotel but then the one on the way back will be longer, so you are better off taking the 3 charge approach that includes the hotel since that one can take place while you are busy losing your money in the casino).

>Also the early Nissan Leafs, pioneers in the mass-market EV space, had batteries with only air cooling and which experienced significant degradation.

I never understood why they carried on with that for so long when they had a better system in their vans which they could have dropped right in.

To this day, I think the existence of the first-gen Leaf was actually harmful for EV adoption.

It had the trifecta of short range, slow charging, and nasty degradation that all feed into the negative perceptions of EVs.