If you're creating a new market, often the only way to be profitable is to create lock-in. Before the PC, you had to buy a computer and the peripherals and the software from a single vendor. Once adoption hits critical mass, it makes sense to make everything interoperable. With cellphones, the walled gardens are again just breaking down. And so on.
Currently, no other strategy for moving away from gasoline is even remotely as promising; I say having to pay for charging is a small price to pay.
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This has happened many times before.
If you're creating a new market, often the only way to be profitable is to create lock-in. Before the PC, you had to buy a computer and the peripherals and the software from a single vendor. Once adoption hits critical mass, it makes sense to make everything interoperable. With cellphones, the walled gardens are again just breaking down. And so on.
Currently, no other strategy for moving away from gasoline is even remotely as promising; I say having to pay for charging is a small price to pay.
Won't people hack their way out? You'd need to DRM your electricity.