[jrockway]

This problem is due to the laws of physics rather than bad product design, however. There is no battery technology that would scale to a car and not self-discharge. Yes, the thing discharges to keep some systems online, but even if it didn't, the battery would still brick itself over time.

The iPhone is a mass market product with millions of users. Tesla's cars are experimental products for early adopters, with a few thousand users. Completely different situations.