And it's one thing to sell printers that require that you use special chip-embedded ink cartridges for that force you to buy ink from the original printer manufacturers … for as long as they choose to make it available.
But, now, a car? A whole car? Set up to only work with a rental battery that, if you stop paying, can be remotely disabled? Who would be insane enough to buy such a thing?
(Underlying EFF story https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy)
Renault ships a brickable car with battery DRM that you’re not allowed to own
You can’t buy a battery for the new Renault Zoe. Instead, you have to rent it. And if you stop making payments, the battery’s DRM will prevent you from recharging it.
Buy one for the developers at XDA to tinker around with, it will be rooted and fully customizable in weeks.
Which is fine for folks that are into that sort of thing, but, honestly, who needs or wants the hassle. Esp. since I'm sure that doing so will violate our overall car warranty.
Interesting. Per http://tymshft.com/2013/11/15/remember-when-people-used-to-own-cars/, Renault claims (effectively) its strategy is to reduce the up-front cost of a battery-operated car by turning the battery part into a rental cost. The price tag looks lower … even if your aggregate monthly payments won't be.
http://www.renault.co.uk/cars/electric-vehicles/zoe/zoe/zebattery/battery-benefits/
Since they will replace the battery for free when it wears down, your rental is also a variable amount based on your monthly mileage.