Landlords increasing rent totally sounds like part of a free market entrepreneurs wet dream to me! If I’m a free market entrepreneur the last thing I want is pesky rent controls limiting my ability to provide supply! Have you ever rented? Did they ever decrease your rent when the economy was looking down or do you acknowledge that they don’t actually care about the income of their tenants insofar as they can extract revenue from someone?

You must feel that a free market cares that some people will no longer be able to afford rent; I don’t believe the economic definition of a free market includes such an idea; I think it’s very happy to displace people from their homes in order to shuffle in those who are willing to pay higher rents; see also: gentrification

Your point hinges on the idea that rent for people making wages below “SFBay A.I. engineer” is not increasing or would not increase because of the inelasticity of these consumers to price increases; can you substantiate this claim in any way?

It’s also worth noting that there are lots of government grants going towards electrification of vehicles including installation of EV chargers, so even removing your idea about landlords refusing to raise rents because they are worried about their tenants (lol) there is still easy room for landlords to get grants to pay for the installation/maintenance of these chargers anyways.