On some meta level, governments and elite are not driven by some meta morality, but mostly by "tactical morality" with immediate utility. Compared to say, fumbling a poorly thought out covid plan or endless foolishness this issue really doesn't make the cut except in its ease of comprehension.
On the cost side: the entire electrical vehicle supply chain is drained against massive demand and price can not go down until the demand is fulfilled. There are things like tens if not hundreds of thousands of preorders on vehicles not to be delivered in years. Existing models have delivery dates a quarter or three down the line. Dealers are putting 10k or more in mark up. Year(s) old vehicles are costing more than new vehicles.
People have often complained that Teslas don't have interiors fit for its price range, and they are right as Tesla is built cheaply with budget car levels of price cutting, and vehicle margins is like 25%, much better than traditional vehicles at 10% and even lower for cheaper cars and wait time is still months. This kind of high margin goes up the supply chain all the way up to battery suppliers and mines. (this is why vertical integration is considered attractive)
A 10x scaling of the Li-ion battery industry simply can not happen overnight. Billions of investment have been put in the pipeline not to produce products until ~2025.
At its Power Day event, Volkswagen said it plans to have all the factories operating in Europe by 2030 and will also be expanding its global charging networks.
www.caranddriver.com
Ford Motor Co and its Korean battery partner SK Innovation will invest $11.4 billion to build an electric F-150 assembly plant and three battery plants in the United States, accelerating the U.S. automaker's push into electric vehicles.
www.reuters.com
Even Tesla's own investment in battery production has not reached production vehicles.
---------
Prices may not come down much until ~2027 where all those factories complete and ramp up to saturate higher margin markets, unless Chinese (with some crazy scaling plans announced: that is where the big battery producers are already at) managed to export in a big way before that.