- Investing capital for new manufacturing lines, retraining employees, hiring new employees, etc. means reduced profits and reduced short term returns for shareholders. The top level execs probably feel like their heads would be on the chopping block if investor returns were to be reduced in the short term for accelerating long term growth.
- A lot of entrenched mid-level and senior executives are simply protecting their turf. Similar to how Nadella completely turned around the mindset at Microsoft once Ballmer was ousted, I'd guess there are a lot of executives with fat paychecks that don't want to see their little empires diminished.
- Holding taxpayers hostage for government subsidies (to be fair, many electric startups did get the benefit). BMWs "threat" about reliance on the Chinese supply chain feels like a kind of strawman to get more subsidies.
