To clarify: did you mean HW update? For instance, I can't imagine a software update changing my battery chemistry from Lithium Ion to Nickel Cadmium.

I think they meant that _supporting_ this type of battery is a software update. Software can't do matter-energy conversion yet.

Your car doesn't have to know about the "chemistry" of your battery. It just needs to know specifics about voltages and power draw and temperatures. This is what drivers do.

This is like suggesting that my computer can't go from AMD to nvidia because they would need to know deep specifics about AMD's proprietary chips to support them. But that's what drivers are for!

That’s because your video card sits on a standard well defined port. Where as charging an EV right now comes a bunch of plugs, voltages, charging times, etc. until a unified open standard is reached where you can go from super charging a Tesla to charging a sodium hyndai is reached, this whole ev dance will remain anti consumer.

It's "just" different charge profile; wouldn't need any hardware change.

Most chemistries can be charged using the same "constant current up to this voltage, constant voltage to the max voltage" method, just need to set the right values.