It will be interesting if they ever get a product to market. I'm willing to bet sitting backwards would cause my wife to vomit in about 3.5 seconds though. She has a hard enough time if I decide to back up our driveway.

They may as well save their development money, no-one wants to sit backwards. It might be OK for a 2-seater but even then the skateboard design lowers the COG and is therefore preferable in a sports car.

It also means you cant recline seats but a tiny fraction of a deck mounted battery and certainly cant lie seats flat so sleeping in your car is out. No thanks and center of gravity will suffer too ridiculous idea.

Sure, the backseats look awkward. That's normal in small cars.

Reminds me of the debate surrounding a gas tank location design that, in a collision, regularly caught fire . . . and surely forces everyone to accept that such batteries also have a penchant to catch fire . . . food for thought.

Rear-facing leads to motion sickness. No getting around this.

Just because it’s always been that way doesn’t make it perfect. Rear faced seating was popular many years ago in the large station wagons back in the day

Trams, city buses, trolley buses, subways all work fine with some backward facing seats. So what's the difference?
Actually, in case of collision it's much more safe (except when those batteries catch fire).

If going vertical, why not go longitudinal?
Contributes to structure and avoids rear-facing seats.
And potentially much more battery space available.

Why stop there? Cover the battery in leather and make it the actual seat! Wrap yourself in lithium ion sumptuousness such that when it malfunctions and catches fire, you can be like the good Captain who goes down with his ship.