The smart ED has the battery leasing approach.
It was very nice when leasing the car entirely, but it was an absolute nightmare if you wanted to buy the car and lease the battery. So many bad situations, including:
1) No good resale standard. You never knew if the battery was leased or not, leading to a lot of deception on dealers especially advertising glider prices only and not including the battery.
2) It was much more expensive than just buying the battery.
3) It was no different than an extended warranty as far as consumer protection v. tech advances go. Normal EV battery warranties cover advances in tech from most makers, just not increases in battery mileage. (Nissan, Tesla, smart falling under this category at a minimum).
4) Needless complexity.
5) You could end up in a situation where you had a car without a battery or made it harder to do so, for a person to pick up a lease on an old battery.
It was very nice when leasing the car entirely, but it was an absolute nightmare if you wanted to buy the car and lease the battery. So many bad situations, including:
1) No good resale standard. You never knew if the battery was leased or not, leading to a lot of deception on dealers especially advertising glider prices only and not including the battery.
2) It was much more expensive than just buying the battery.
3) It was no different than an extended warranty as far as consumer protection v. tech advances go. Normal EV battery warranties cover advances in tech from most makers, just not increases in battery mileage. (Nissan, Tesla, smart falling under this category at a minimum).
4) Needless complexity.
5) You could end up in a situation where you had a car without a battery or made it harder to do so, for a person to pick up a lease on an old battery.