Comment Re: It Is A Decent Car (Score 1) 199
> All PHEVs and EVs have some amount of "reserve" battery capacity, which gets released over time as the battery ages.
I don't know about "all" but if this is true at all, it's not very common. At least for modern EVs produced in the past few years, net (usable) battery capacity is over 95% of the gross (total) capacity.
The purpose of this reserve is to be a buffer against over charging or discharging. It's far too small to be of any use "releasing" this capacity to compensate for degradation. One of the lessons learned in the past ~15 years is that the batteries just don't degrade like everyone feared they would, provided they are properly managed (Looking at you, Nissan...)
Plus batteries are already expensive so NOBODY is going to stuff like 20-50% more chemistry into the pack, with all the cost and engineering that entails, and NOT sell the range that capacity provides.
=Smidge=