Myth check
Was Better Place too early for battery swapping?
Not a timing failure since 2026-10-25 · ledger #19
It needed rival carmakers to standardise on its pack.
Short answer
Better Place raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build battery-swap stations and went bankrupt in May 2013 with one car model that used them. Swapping needed carmakers to standardise their battery packs, and they would not. NIO later made swapping work in China by being the carmaker itself. It was available at any date to a differently structured company.
- Killing constraint
- Nothing was missing
E6 Behavioural norm - Who is in now
- NIO (battery swap)
founded 2014 - Why it is not timing
- Coordination failure: it needed a whole industry to standardise
The enablers it needed already existed; something else killed it.
Graveyard
Companies that died proving people wanted this. Capital shown where it was disclosed.
| Company | Years | Capital | How it died | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Better Place | 2007–2013 | — | Bankruptcy, May 2013 | source M |
Who succeeded at the same time
- NIO (battery swap) (founded 2014) — swaps its own packs in its own stations source