They might not have a strong motive to improve - but if consumers are saving 30% pa, that will be enough to provide happiness for a while. Competition is the t

They might not have a strong motive to improve - but if consumers are saving 30% pa, that will be enough to provide happiness for a while. Competition is the thing that's supposed to encourage improvement - if Better Place can actually make it work, competitors will presumably get funded. It's not just actual competitors, but also potential competitors. A danger then is an oligopoly (where competitors work in concert; a virtual monopoly. Adam Smith has a saying that men of the same trade seldom meet without a scheme to defraud the public being hatched). But they do have some motivation: more efficient batteries would use less electricity (cost) but give the same kilometers (revenue); fewer changeovers would increase consumer usage (more revenue), and make it attractive to the next segment of the population (more users) - and, perhaps especially, make it viable for larger cities/countries where a greater range is needed to attract even a sliver of early-adopters. NOTE: Battery tech does improve, but really slowly. It's the least of their problems. funfact: electric vehicles were actually in use about 100 years ago, and edison (for one) was involved in improving battery tech.