A lot of this battery stuff is very new at the moment. You look at, say, a Panasonic NCR18650 [1] and it's very affordable, but it loses 20% of its capacity after just 300 charge cycles. It depends on temprature, charge rate, depth of discharge and so on, so designers can trade off longevity for upfront cost. There are alternative battery chemistries that last longer - some manufacturers claim more than 10,000 charge cycles [2] but how do you test a manufacturer's claims that a battery will last 30 years without waiting until the technology is 30 years old? Or maybe the future is batteries getting swapped at change stations, Tesla style, so you'll end up with a different battery every day.

We consumers aren't equipped to evaluate the longevity claims of the manufacturers, so why should we take on the risk when that 30-year battery might break after 3 years? On the other hand if we pay by the month or by the mile, if it needs replacement after 3 years that's the manufacturer's problem.

In other words, renting gives the manufacturer an incentive not to cut corners, and to make sure their products are long-lasting and low maintenance, because the longer the product lasts the better the profit. Sure beats the printer ink economic model, where the manufacturers have an incentive to make cheap products that don't last long because selling more replacements means more profit.

[1] http://industrial.panasonic.com/www-data/pdf2/ACA4000/ACA400... [2] http://www.altairnano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/60Ah-Da...

The battery renting thing is great! The relatively short life of batteries and the price of replacing them is one of the biggest problems with electric cars. Renting means that isn't your problems anymore.

If that's not harder than just hacking it plain an simple...

Given that the EU has already started on the 'right to be forgotten' issue I'd be surprised if they don't start making an issue out of this in the next couple of years.

It'll be very interesting to see what kind of effects this will have on companies like Facebook in the long term.

Dunno many people who buy cars having any idea of the privacy issues of driving the nice new shiny car. Most normal people are only just realising that their entire online activity is recorded in one way or another. Cars? People don't have a clue. And why would they? Are we given data collection statements before we decide which car to buy?

I really get tired of people knowledgeable in a certain area assuming that the general population know, or should know, what they know.

No, the average punter has no idea what data their new car is sending back to base. And frankly, even as both a techie and petrol head, I don't either. I know it can happen, I know it does happen, but I have zero idea what, when or where. Sorry and all that.

(Um, seems I went off on a tangent below. Im leaving it in 'cos of the sheer effort involved.....But, you know, do stop at this point if you have a life)

What distorts public thinking even more is that a while ago politicians (UK) floated the idea that all cars should have some sort of computer fitted that can track and some how govern car use. (Safety and insurance, you understand. No, nothing to do with tracking the plebs, no, not at all. How dare the dear reader be so cynical. Shame on you!!!) On the political side, that has gone quiet. But the on the business side, its all the rage. People in general can be forgiven for thinking that because the political debate went away, so did the issue. So, no creepy tracking by government. But, the corporations are quietly implementing the strategy instead. And if government agencies want that date, one twist of the law and its all theirs.

And now as I think about it, what a clever strategy to reduce freedoms by the back door. Commerce seems to be able to do what governments could never do. In fact the genius of it is that we are happy to pay for it as a feature.

And that just cars. Look at what smartphones actually do. Not only do they track and catalog us, but we actually spend hours every single day literally filling out time sheets in the form of twitter and facebook. Imagine of a government told us to carry personal trackers and to spend a mere half hour filling out a form that told them what we did every day in even minimal detail.

All very odd to me.

Yes, I exaggerate, but hopefully to make a point.