It's not free, it was just paid for by other people. If it has to be nearly free for someone to take it, not sure that really supports these being commercially viable.
EVs have been getting at different times up-to and beyond 10k in incentives paid for by others, which also points to not-yet being viable. Between renewables being chosen over nuclear and the onslaught of EVs, we're gonna need a couple orders of magnitude more battery capacity in the coming years. Maybe subsidies for alternative forms of energy storage a smart hedge.
Incentives as in tax incentives, subsidies, rebates and credits, not manufacturer incentives. On Tesla's own website they still factor "incentives" into the price for states that still offer them. At some points in time , incentives were so wild, you could lease a Chevy Volt for $100/mo with nothing down, a Fiat 500e for about $90.
I never said it was commercially viable. All I said was that it makes sense for California to subsidize the technology to reach the state's emission goals until the electrical grid can be upgraded to support electrification of all vehicles.