No batteries and no fuel makes it a lot harder to unload.
Requiring batteries to be disconnected after loading / connected before unloading could help, but that adds more complexity to the process. Some vehicles have battery disconnects in inconvenient places. Adding a few minutes of labor on each end for reasonable vehicles would be fine. Adding 30 minutes for vehicles where the battery is buried underneath the trunk/trim work or where disconnecting the battery and closing the doors makes it very hard to open the doors at the end of the journey would be more problematic; maybe that would help encourage better vehicle design, but in the meantime shipping vehicles would get much more difficult.
This is a value chain issue. At one specific point in the value chain, people see the potential for difficulty, so they resist it. But what if the value you get as a result is greater than the difficulty? Afaik, the main issue of transportation isn't time, it's cost. If this lowers overall cost then it's a value-add.
Think of the consequences of removing battery/fuel:
- Pros
- Reduced shipping costs (you have to ship vehicles again, plus somebody has to
cover the costs of these lost ships)
- Lower insurance premiums (from reduced insurance payouts)
- Reduced inventory losses (which require more inventory to be stocked and shipped
to resist sales losses from lost vessels)
- Reduced vehicle price
- Cons
- Additional transportation time
- Additional labor cost