The Green Cell Battery Vending Machine is an Awesome Model

I went to the Greener Gadgets Conference a few weeks ago and caught the green design competition at the end of the day. One of the entries that was presented made absolutely no sense to me- the Green Cell battery network.

The idea is to standardize cell phone and gadget batteries and sell them in a vending machine. People would switch out batteries via the Green Cell machine when they run down, getting a fully charged one in return. The designers of Green Cell think this is better than charging up your battery at home because you wouldn’t have to buy a ton of different adapters for all your hand held gadgets.

Really?

Am I missing something here? Do they really think people will buy into a system where they need to run out to a vending machine every time their cell phone or iPod batteries die? Wouldn’t the extra gas to make the trip offset any savings from not having to make the extra adapters in the first place? I plug in my cell year old cell phone once every day or two, I’ll be damned if I had to run down to the store to get a new one 3 times a week.

I think model is flawed. I doubt many people change out their gadget batteries in the first place- they just get a new one when they buy their new phone or MP3 player. Standard battery sizes are something the tech industry needs to embrace, but does it make sense to sell/lease batteries in a vending machine? No, I don’t think so.

I’m a dumbass. See Jill’s comment below.

Link [Inhabitat]