With Li-ion batteries it's best to part charge as often as possible since this gives them the longest life. For example, one that's part charged after each short journey, say 4 to 8 miles, might lose 10% of capacity in the first year, one that's fully discharged every use before charging might lose three or more times that. These figures aren't precise since they depend on many factors like how fast discharges are and temperatures etc, but the relationship remains the same, charge Li-ion as often as possible.
NiMh batteries are the other way round. It's best to fully discharge them from time to time, say once every 5 or 6 charges, but they are less critical than Li-ion and don't vary as much.
All batteries lose life by gradually losing capacity, not voltage. No-one is sure of average Li-ion life for traction batteries yet, but the pool of technical opinion is that the effective life will be about three years. The size and harshness of usage is the limiter. I've got a very small Li-ion battery that runs a minidisc player that's heading for nine years old and has still only lost about 10% of capacity, but we won't get anything remotely like that from our batteries.
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