Thinking about Better Place's free car strategy

Better Place's Shai Agassi is all over the map, and I don't mean because his company is talking about unleashing electric cars in Australia, Israel, Denmark and other places. Back in October, he claimed that the Chevy Volt would be a "niche product." Whatever accuracy that statement has, it certainly doesn't seem to jive with the message he gave to the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco recently, where he once again proposed giving people free electric cars if they signed up for Better Place's electric car plan (when it becomes a reality). BP would then make money off of the usage fees. He calls it the cell phone model, but I don't see how handing someone a big car with expensive batteries that costs way more than a RAZR to make and then taking their $50 a month will result in a profit. Especially if he thinks that EVs will be niche-y. Of course, his dissatisfaction with the Volt was that'd it be too expensive, but isn't making the cars free going too far in the other direction?

[Source: WIRED]