It is tempting to think Tesla has some truly special tech in the batteries and/or BMS that makes them so different from other li-ion's that we just shouldn't even try and conserve their life any further than what is being done automatically. the reason I'm motivated is because I have come to a conclusion from owning quite a few consumer electronic devices with li-ion batteries, including 3 Leafs so far that declining range is worth staving off. Our ipad two is a good example. it's got an 11 hour battery, in a way it's like the S, so abundant that why bother worrying about it? Turns out we make a road trip once a year, sometimes twice a year down to Sacramento CA, 11+hours. On the occasion that we actually need all that "range", it's pretty fantastic to give the kids something to distract themselves with for pretty much the entire drive on a single charge. I conditioned the battery when we first got the Ipad, charging to 100% then running all the way down, and mostly it sits between 40%and80 SOC on a day to day basis. a couple years into ownership and the thing still plays movies for nearly 11 hours on these long road trips! I'm honestly kind of amazed. One could argue that the 85kW S has an 8 year unlimited miles warranty so who cares, but on the other hand, that warranty does not cover gradual loss, we are pretty sure Tesla will stand behind their product but we don't know where they will draw the line, we do know Nissan has basically rewritten the dictionary definition of "gradual" to avoid expense to themselves, so to me there is motivation to start out on the right foot with conditioning the S when new and minimizing deep depth discharge cycles as well as time spent resting at high SOC. While there are variations in manufacturing quality, chemistry and battery management systems in chargers etc, it's hard to believe that some of the basic principles that are known to have an effect on Li-ion battery life don't apply to the S as well. Of course, I have no objective data and can only speculate, but I do have to admit that it's going to be tempting to leave the S parked unplugged some of the time (of course not even close to long enough to brick the battery!) and charging using a shallow mid pack cycling technique unless I need the extra range. Having the HPWC will definitely make it more convenient to do this, as I will have a relatively fast way of adding charge on short notice.