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Comment by ldaw | Hacker News Reader

It's my opinion that we need regulation around this. Car manufacturers should be required to offer buy-back programs for their batteries, and then properly dispose of them, ideally with as much recycling as possible.

I also believe manufacturers should be required to offer replacement batteries for sale for a certain number of years. It's mind-boggling that some companies have stopped selling replacement battery packs within 5 years of selling that vehicle.

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This isn't needed as it's already profitable to buy back batteries. Tesla already does so.

An industry-standard specification is helpful (like with most replaceable batteries).

Doesn't seem like folks are in a hurry for that, and then, there's the old "A camel is a horse that was designed by committee" joke...

From the computer world: A simple standard like USB they said. Got us to USB-C.

I think it might be too early in the game to standardize the interface let alone the volumetric characteristics of car batteries. Do we require all battery connectors to be able to carry 1600 amps just to support Plaid?

Depends where you put the intervention.

While USB has issues, the EU basically standardising mobile phone chargers was brilliant.

The bureaucrats shouldn't define a technical spec. They should define a social requirement and let the techs solve it best they can.

Very good point.

I'm starting to see a lot of non-Tesla EVs around. I saw my first F-150 Lightning, the other day, as well as a Hyundai Ioniq Electric, yesterday.

But I am seeing a lot of Teslas. Part of it might be, because I live in a relatively affluent area.

Maybe just a certification to make sure the thing is easily recyclable.

They need regulations to standardize not only batteries but charge stations. Batteries should be interchangeable across brands and grade/capacity tiers.

This would be a horrendous idea unless you want every car to be of the exact same design. For the same reason we don't make laws that every combustion engine can be used in every car, we don't want this either.

Right so let’s have thousands of variations and none of them interchangeable. Great for the environment.

Now imagine if you can only fill up at an Exxon. Not because the fuel is different but because the pump nozzle size is different. Only a true libertarian capitalist would come up with such an idea.

Batteries after they are used up will be broken down and recycled. Being interchangeable in their initial form is irrelevant.

I believe the parent was reacting to your suggestion to make batteries interchangeable, not to your suggestion to make all chargers compatible. I came away from your first comment with the idea that you were suggesting that I should be able to take the battery from a Leaf and transfer it to a Tesla and have it both fit in the car and function correctly, and I believe that's the notion that the parent was objecting to.

How about for everything? You sell something, you must make it as easy as it was to purchase to take it back for proper disposal.

One nice side effect of this is the feedback loop to the OEM and another metric around useful life. I'd love to give a window AC unit back to the OEM with some notes.

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