Assumption, same as everything else coming from you.
That's not even an answer to the question - you realise that, don't you? I'll ask you again: "what's stopping them"?
The fossil fuel industry is the most regulated on the planet, more regulated than the pharmaceutical industry.
Anything they do is either paid for or done accordingly to strict rules.
I know that because my very close friend is a top manager in one of the biggest oil companies in the world.
You jest, right?!
The oil industry has an utterly appalling reputation! Look at the Niger delta! Practically everywhere outside the First World that those guys touch, ends up trashed. Keep drinking the Kool aid....or smoking it, or whatever you do... I really don't think many people will take you seriously if you try to hold up Big Oil as a paragon of well-regulated virtue. Take the example you're so fond of, cobalt. EV manufacturers are setting up blockchain systems to at least try to avoid using stuff obtained with child labour - if it's going to use the stuff at all. The oil industry has been using it for decades and never once has asked too many questions about where it comes from.
He also tells me that within the industry there's no panic whatsoever because they know the transition to alternative fuel will take decades.
Indeed it will. Nobody is claiming otherwise.
And they know that electric will fail.
Ah... hubris... Kodak "knew" that digital cameras would fail too...
For some reason that you won't understand they're investing money in hydrogen technology.
Oh it's a reason I understand perfectly well! They know that their days are numbered selling oil. Purely aside from the regulatory and environmental challenges, they also know they will run out of the stuff. They, better than most, know that all these stories about new oil being continuously formed, are BS - that's why they're now wringing the last dregs out of shale and sand. They make their living out of selling fuel to people...
So... what to do? They can't sell electricity to people - not in any real quantities. Too many competitors - but worse than that, the plebs can bloody make their own! That won't do! No... they need something that will tie people to them, like oil did. Something they can control, and where people have to keep coming back to them for more of it...
...I wonder what that would be...?
But hey, good luck to them, I say! If they can find some way of making it with minimal environmental damage - good on them! And if you want to buy it off them and put it in a car - knock yourself out! Far be it from my mind to point out how expensive that's going to be...
