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Exactly, and during those 3-4 decades that the car is around, you have to replace the battery pack 3-4 times. I'm all for EV's and the apparently impressive quality of this specific car, but it would be nice to see a more accurate cost benefit analysis.

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Battery replacements are around 10k/decade[1]. Quite a bit less than the 30k/decade estimated petrol specific costs provided by the author.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery

Your break-even point depends a lot on how much you drive each year. I drive about 3000 miles a year (primarily to get to mass transit) and my car gets about 25 mpg in local driving, using 120 gallons of gas a year. At around $4 per gallon, that's only $480 a year or $4800 per decade. My car is 12 years old, so I'd expect a car bought this year to be more efficient.

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