>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.