No wonder they need subsidies

Is the per-mile cost of Tesla battery depreciation alone higher than the per-mile cost of gas for a conventional vehicle?

[Tesla battery life?] — Autoblog Green

The Tesla Roadster gets about 220 miles in similar testing from a 53 kWh pack. Tesla, however, is using almost the full capacity of its pack to get its range and that is expected to yield a shortened lifespan for the pack (approx. five-to-six years).

"Tesla Battery Pack Replacement Would be $36,000 Today, Musk Says " Green Car Advisor

Something we missed in Tesla CEO Elon Musk's newsletter the other day: He says that the laboriously hand-assembled lithium-ion battery pack in the Tesla Roadster would cost about $36,000 to replace today, but should last at least 100,000 miles, or about 7 years.

Note that for a conventional vehicle at 20mpg, you could go 100,000 miles on 5000 gallons of gas (at $3/gal, $15,000).