[sliken]

Well Tesla's stated goal is to migrate cars from ICE to electric, even if they aren't Teslas. That require money, quite a bit actually. As many business have learned you get the maximum market share if you have a wide variety of price points. Each price point needs to appeal to a different market and you have to carefully avoid not frustrating customers with behavior that's viewed as unfair.

So if Tesla gives they same batteries to everyone, nobody will pay more for larger batteries, Tesla has less money, and loses one of the justifications for different model prices. As a result Tesla growth and spending on R&D would have to drop.

Additionally the "unused" sells are used, very useful in fact. The lower load per cell generates less heat when charging or discharging. The lower heat keeps the batteries happier. The lower load per cell means the batteries last longer. So the 200 mile range drivers paid for 200 miles range, but will get better battery life than if they had gotten an actual physical 200 mile battery.

By similar logic, should every Tesla customer get "free" full self driving because every Tesla ships with the hardware? Should every windows box get all commercial software for free, because they have the hardware required to run it?