They're not a useful innovation - they are an abhorrent consumerist "disposalism" decision to pump sales, a safety nightmare (isolate it? nope), purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder to recycle the nasty chemicals.
Don't give me the shit about it allowing smaller devices to be made either. You can make smaller devices with removable batteries fine.
I’m talking about EVs, not combustion vehicles. Also there’s no law forcing everyone to use removable batteries in any of those devices.
My point is that users freely choose different types of batteries for different applications. It makes no sense to coerce everyone else into choosing your favorite type of battery.
Vendor lock in is obviously a side effect, and there are consumer- hostile reasons why companies like proprietary batteries. But fundamentally the battery shape and power characteristics as well as the charging are still areas where companies can innovate and differentiate themselves. I'd rather have to choose a brand than get some out of date, un-ergonomic "approved" battery and connector that I have to use with my tools.
It's fundamentally different than phone cables, where the shape of the connector doesn't really matter and was / is purely a lock-in. There are big differences between the choices the cordless tool manufacturers have made re batteries. It's certainly not a place for government mandates.
Agree. Non removable batteries is an aesthetic approach to consumer devices. It has no place in industrial applications. An analogy would be a decorated plastic bag selling seeds at hardware store, Or a brown ugly burlap selling seeds to landscape contractors. One is for consumers. The other is for the expert.
That article, while interesting, does not address button batteries. Maybe I missed it. I found it interesting that you can ship any amount of lithium batteries as cargo.
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