Battery longevity and buying an EV off a dealer lot

[thenaimis]

I went to the Audi dealership today to look at the e-tron and one of the things I'd asked about was the ability to set the battery charge limit to prolong the life of the battery. The dealer was oblivious, but I managed to find it in the e-tron menu system where I believe it had been set to 100%.

Later it occurred to me that buying a car off a lot like this, you have no idea how many times the battery has been charged or to what level it's been charged to. Granted, cars don't sit on dealer lots for three years so chances are the battery won't have been thoroughly abused during that time (one hopes), but it still made me think about it a bit.

 

[Cripps]

Many EVs reserve some battery that doesn’t appear So it might be advertised as 60kwh but actually be 66kwh or similar.

So 100% might not really the whole battery. Tesla does seem to let you really charge to 100%, but my Kia Soul stops level 3 charging at about 90%.

“Audi says it made a choice not to maximize range and noted that the e-tron maintains a 12 percent battery reserve that's meant to prolong battery life” 2019 Audi e-tron – New Fully Electric Crossover Specs, Release Date

 

[PhantomX]

I have had 2 BMW i3's and both charge to 100% all the time. BMW doesn't provide you setting to change that unlike my Model 3.

 

[thenaimis]

Kia Soul stops level 3 charging at about 90%.

Yeah I've heard that about the Kia. Does it let you lower that limit or otherwise set a charge limit for AC charging? As you say, 100% doesn't necessarily mean 4.2V per cell, but I prefer to have the option of lowering the charge limit myself.