Why is it OK for a newer technology to be restricted just because that's how it is for an older technology? We didn't start charging for emails just because snailmail cost money..

Its not ok or not-ok; its a marketing model (lease the battery) to bring down the purchase price of an electric car, who's major cost component is the battery. Go ahead, buy a Tesla if you can afford it.

For the same reason it's OK for vendors to set their own sales terms. If you don't like it, don't buy Renault, choose from one of the other electric vehicles on the market.

If you lose a job and can't afford to pay for the car(but still might have some savings to pay for gas) it usually takes a few months between you missing a payment and you losing the car to the bank or a debt collector.

With this technology your car can be disabled as soon as a single payment is missed.

And other cars are disabled as soon as a single gas payment is missed.

The payment here is for the battery, not for the car as a whole.

Credit card auto payments are great. That is, until you get a new card with a different number or expiry. No matter how careful I am, I miss updating details with one company. I get an account locked, and an overdue fine. Having my car locked down would make the 2 yearly process somewhat worse. Great stuff.

So you have gas money but not battery money? Huh?

You have $10 a month to charge the battery money, but not $200 a month pay for the car money.

What's the rental fee? Is it more or less than the $100-200/month most people spend on gas?

Could be the same, but people scrape together gas money with greater urgency than they mail checks to pay bills, which I believe drives the change. Now people will be equally motivated to make their monthly payment.

In a bind, you can get that $100-200/mo much lower.

Perhaps they can offer a system where partial battery payments will get you reduced usage.

They would do that only if they have to fight a competitor, for sure. The whole idea of this rental is to follow the quite successful model one sees with ISP or mobile operators. Currently, they sell a car and that's it. They don't get more money if you use it for 20 years (my car, which is from another french brand, is that old).

Why all the vitriol? Because your hands are tied once you've bought the car. And even if you trust Renault (or any other company) and are pretty sure they won't abuse your weaker position today, can you trust them tomorrow?

How about a better analogy?

If you lose your job and can't pay for gasoline, you can't drive.

If you lose your job and can't pay the electricity bill, you can't drive. Why add the extra battery DRM on top of it?