[elihu]

Maybe it makes it easier to buy and have cars shipped from outside the country, since batteries are hazardous materials? Or maybe locally-made batteries are cheaper?

The opposite might be the case as well, maybe the cars are easy to manufacture locally but they import the batteries from China or wherever?

Or maybe just decoupling the batteries from the car enables more consumer choice. I wish the article had some hint about the actual motivation for this policy, but I could imagine several scenarios where it could be beneficial.