The battery swap idea is kept away at arm's length by car manufacturers themselves who feel responsible for customers mishandling batteries. Innovative adoptions are thwarted due to lawsuits, legal issues, ethics; like the conversation behind the too-soon viability of self-driving cars.
The best use case for battery swap is by vehicle fleet owners, like Amazon and their Rivians. Or by corporations with overlord like discipline over their equipment and workers.
I love it when second order effects are used to justify first order decisions.
I believe it's much simpler: there was no financial advantage to Musk toward achieving market dominance and the prior history of auto industry execs collaborating on a standard early in the life of a new product is low. There was significant financial advantage to Musk selling best of breed, and competing on battery quality and range was in his interest.
I believe Tesla and Ford and others position on commonality like charger plugging is applicable here. They probably needed to be regulated into it. Which they were in Europe and Asia.
US Lawfare would stop alcohol and gasoline dead as new products. And sex, television, and the Internet.
> I love it when second order effects are used to justify first order decisions.
This is how the entire free market works. If you design a product in such a way that it increases liability, manufacturing cost or reusability, a smart business will always veto it. Their goal is to design a product, not a tool. Products are designed to encourage repeat business, not to work best for the user. Tesla and Ford have no reason to encourage each other to drive lower margins. It's probably the main reason neither of them have attempted such a deal, besides the logistics nightmare.
> US Lawfare would stop alcohol and gasoline dead as new products. And sex, television, and the Internet.
I swear to god; all it took was one FTC suit against Apple and half the damn website wants to depose US regulators. What has gotten into you lot?
There's a difference between regulatory impost and lawfare. I have no beef with the regulator. I would like the car industry regulated to require swappable unit battery designs.
The best use case for battery swap is by vehicle fleet owners, like Amazon and their Rivians. Or by corporations with overlord like discipline over their equipment and workers.