There are no EV mandates. The article presents Trump’s statements about repealing an EV mandate that doesn’t exist without ever noting that no such mandate exists.
Without seeing video of the statements it’s hard to say how much that was Trump selling policy for donations and saying the quiet part out loud vs just making a joke. But either way, I’m pretty sure it’s based on a flawed premise because at this point I don’t think Elon gives a shit about electric cars either.
And finally, the talk about the cost of charging infrastructure is framing the issue in the stupidest way possible. How much did it cost to build infrastructure for ICE vehicles, to have gas stations all over the place and a supply chain to keep them running? A hell of lot more than it will take to add charging infrastructure, that’s for sure. But we don’t talk about that cost because no single entity paid for it all, and those that did mostly did so as an investment, which generally paid off. People will pay for public chargers. We don’t need public funds to cover everything, they just help get the investments rolling in faster.
What we do need is a rule forcing apartments to add charging of some kind to all residential parking. Even a standard wall outlet for each space would be enough to solve the majority of the charging problem.