The current mobility system, dominated by fossil fuel powered
automobiles, is under increasing pressure due to its environmental
impact. To address this issue there is a need for a transition
of the system towards one that is more sustainable, including the
introduction of car technologies that allow a decrease in fuel consumption
and the substitution of fossil fuels as primary energy
source. Due to the stability of the current automotive industry
and the dominance of the internal combustion engine technology,
it is expected that the incumbent firms and their activities will
play a crucial role in the transition. Policy makers have therefore
introduced a variety of policies to encourage the industry to provide
suitable solutions.We have conducted amicro-level analysis of how
the threemain German carmanufacturers have changed their activities
in the field of low emission vehicle technologies in response to
national/international events and policy making. Our analysis suggests
that policy makers only have limited influence on the type
of disruptive solution that is chosen by these individual companies
and that activities related to solutions that were not familiar to the
individual car manufacturer were mainly induced by internal or external champions. Still, while the existence of regulatory policies
allowed such activities to succeed, on its own it only encouraged the
industry to work on incremental solutions based upon the knowledge
already possessed.