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Comment by Kirby64 | Hacker News Reader

You’re forgetting the dynamic that allows battery swapping to occur there. You’re essentially leasing access to the batteries. I suspect in many countries leasing part of the vehicle (ie the part that actually lets you go anywhere) is pretty unpalatable. Otherwise, if you’re getting a battery swap you’ll get a battery of unknown quality. I know I wouldn’t want one.

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Weird take and counter real world experience globally with "leased" items, eg: propane tanks, etc.

Kleenheat and other gas tank providers are responsible for tank inspectections and rotating out tanks that are getting old and unreliable.

Hot battery swap in Taiwain is logged up the whazoo for seamless ePurchase; you swap a battery for your vehicle and use it - time of purchase is logged, vehicle mileage is on your app, if a battery fails to deliver the expected milage | charge then there's no real issue, data is available and it's easy for the provider to fail that battery and provide customer with replacement and redress an economic issues.

Propane tanks are a weird comparison. You’re leasing the entire thing, and then paying only for fuel. It’s closer to leasing an entire vehicle.

With battery leasing you’ve got a shell of a car you presumably pay for, and lease the battery. Leasing the entire car and also being able to do battery swaps is an advantage, but if you own the car then now the company that does the battery swaps dictates how good of a battery you get in a swap. Again, not sure a lot of people (myself included) would be on board with that.

The tank is not the vehicle, the grill is the vehicle! People own their grills and swap the tanks. No one worries that much about the tanks because they are effectively interchangeable across brands (after some lawsuits and FTC intervention) and their performance is now regulated. Batteries are a great comparison and need the same kinds of consumer protections.

Are we talking about proper 'leases' on propane tanks (usually very large propane tanks, meant to be attached to the side of a house/business)? Or are you referring to the usual 20 lb tanks that are stored underneath grills? Because everyone I know 'owns' 20 lb tanks. Nobody pays some monthly fee to lease them. You just typically exchange the entire tank, fuel and all, for whatever other tank someone has.

If that was how the battery swaps work, then I'd agree, but that isn't what Nio is doing. You are paying a monthly fee for the battery in addition to paying for each swap.

> Because everyone I know 'owns' 20 lb tanks.

By your own air quoting you know they don't own them.

The gas companies own those tanks and responsible for inspecting them whenever they rotate back for a refill.

The also choose the economic deal, they've baked a "lease fee" into their costings and are happy enough to ignore tanks that are never returned as most are returned, the total volume is high and the costs of chasing strays (that have an expiry date in any case) are greater than the value of gathering them back.

It's possible that EV batteries will one day have the same deal as propane tanks, more or less wrt to an explicit lease fee Vs an invisible one.

There’s no ambiguity here. You own the 20 lb tanks. Now, after they expire most propane companies won’t refill them, but otherwise it’s yours to keep. You could argue that this isn’t actually “owning” it, but for all intents and purposes it is. You’re responsible for making sure it’s not expired when using it, although the companies that do all the exchanges are responsible for making sure tanks they sell are not expired.

The is the misapplied Gresham's law model. You won't get a battery of unknown quality, you will get a battery which does exactly what it says it does and misbehaving batteries will be pulled from the stack.

It's a fallacy to think rental models fall to the lowest common denominator. Lemons get driven out of the system because they are unprofitable.

I agree you won't get a total dud of a battery if you can swap it, but why would I exchange my brand new battery for one that could potentially have hundreds of thousands of miles on it and therefore the range isn't nearly as good? It basically sets the guaranteed battery you receive as the lowest that Nio considers 'acceptable'.

In this model you would never buy a car with a brand new battery. You'd buy the car and pay the first deposit on the battery from the dealers swap stack.

The car would be considerably cheaper. Your battery deposit would be a lot more than people want but basically ensured enough capex to keep new batteries entering the market of rented/leased batteries.

Lambo and Ferrari might be outside the model. And top range models from any manufacturer. Any normal car would be in this framework. If you don't care about cost and delay to recharge you wouldn't want it. Trucks and ordinary mortals would really be better off.

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