The temporal evolution of resistance strategies during low-carbon transitions: Revealing the industry playbook of US, German, and Japanese automakers in the unfolding electric vehicle transition (1990–2025)

Building on research into the types of resistance strategies employed by incumbent firms (including framing, lobbying, organised pressure, and litigation), this article investigates the temporal development of these strategies during low-carbon transitions. Rather than understanding resistance as a temporary phenomenon in early transition stages, we conceptualise it as a dimension recurring over multiple phases. We develop an ideal-type framework of changes in the type and focus of resistance strategies during five phases of low-carbon reorientation, thereby identifying the industry playbook. We apply this framework to three case studies of incumbent automakers in the United States, Germany, and Japan, which since the 1990s have used multiple resistance strategies while reorienting towards battery electric vehicles (BEVs). We find that US automakers resisted strongly from the early 1990s, that German automakers gradually increased their resistance strategies over time, and that Japanese automakers hardly resisted in early phases (because of their reorientation towards hybrid electric vehicles) but strongly resisted BEVs in later phases. We further find that US automakers used more overt confrontational strategies, while Japanese and German automakers relied on less visible lobbying and consultation tactics. Automakers used resistance strategies throughout the entire case study duration but shifted focus in the last period from opposing the direction of travel towards resisting the speed of change. Although automakers are now significantly reorienting towards BEVs, they continue to use resistance strategies. We explain this paradox by suggesting that automakers play multi-dimensional chess, in which they reorient in some dimensions while resisting in others. • Building on extant research, paper analyses evolution of resistance strategies over time • Proposes ideal-type framework that plots resistance strategies across five phases of low-carbon reorientation • Framework tested with longitudinal analyses of resistance strategies of incumbent automakers in US, Germany, and Japan • Find that automakers resist in all periods, including in most recent period when they diversify towards EVs • Focus of resistance changed over time from contesting direction of change to speed of change