Facts:
1- Tesla model battery capacity is either 54, 62, 75 or 82 kWh, so 82 kWh at most ( we will work with this number).
2- It costs $20,000 and $35,000 to get a full battery module replacement for the Model 3.
3-
Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has stated that the Model 3’s battery was designed to last 300,000 to 500,000 miles, or 1,500 charging cycles.
in the best-case scenario, the 82 kWh will average 70% for its lifespan, it will be worse given the inverter loss and the 100% DOD, but let's just say it's 57kWh, an S9 will drain it to 0% in 40 hours, so he has 1500*40 hours to mine with the battery before it's done, in other words, every cycle is good for 1.6 days, so 1500/1.6 days = 937 or let's just round that to 30 months.
given that we used the largest battery possible, then it's fair to use the $35,000 figure for battery replacement, that's burning $1,166 a month to make a $100 mining with S9.
The other GPU guy mentioned in the article might be in a better spot, given that GPUs yield a lot more $ per KwH, so let's assume the 800$ they mentioned is correct, he still loses $366 every month.
Not taking into account the cost of their setup, the time and energy wasted during deriving the car to where they charge it for free, voiding the warranty, and the inability to drive a car which they paid a few tens of thousands to obtain.
I found some other sources that claim battery replacement is 14k for the same model, which means the GPU guy is "in theory" making some profit until he is not, but let's just use another approach for the 14k figure.
14k to get a total of 57*1500 or 85,500 kWh, which means it costs 16 cents per KwH, the average miner in the U.S get a lot less than that, large mining corps get 2 cents, folks in NY maybe get 8-10 cents, I am not sure about the rest, but if anyone pays more than that, might as well use the battery to power their house instead, because mining at 16 cents is a losing game.
The experiment is very interesting nonetheless.
