All li ion batteries work this way. If the battery mapped 100% to the chemical max capacity, your batteries would degrade very fast and die very young.

This whole discussion is colored by confusiin between the heavily simplified model presented by the charge indicator with the raw battery properties.

Fun fact: there is no "80%" level either as seen from the battery controller POV, that's just a forecast about how much energy the battery might be able produce if run until the cut-off level (and the 0% level here is also a fair bit above the chemical empty state), and the battery controller is constantly updating its model about how the battery behaves when discharging to keep the forecast accuracy reasonable when the battery ages. When the batteries come from the factory, the calibrations for 0%, 80%, 100% are at certain voltages, and they constantly move throughout the life of the battery. (Maybe not the 0% voltage)

During one of the last few hurricanes, Tesla did an OTA update that unlocked extra range for people trying to leave.

I seem to remember it being something like the hardware capacity is one number but there's a software upsell that you normally need to pay to unlock full capacity. But it may have also been a "we'll push the normal operating parameters to give you this extra boost", don't quite remember.

Tesla sells two versions of that car, one with longer range, even though they have identical hardware. During the hurricane, they lifted the software cap on the shorter-range version.

Tesla has a very minimal top buffer though, it is only used to offset the known degradation of the new battery. After 6-9 months you'll have no top buffer left. You can tell because charging from 99 to 100% is at extremely low amps and takes forever.

With their Powerpack products, Tesla oversizes the inverters and capacity a bit to deal with reduced capacity over time, so if you have a 1 MWh battery, they might install 1.15 MWh and limit to 1 MWh so that in 20 years it still has a 1 MWh capability.