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Porsche announced plans to shut down three German-based subsidiaries tied to battery technology, e-bikes and software development. The affected businesses include Cellforce Group, Porsche eBike Performance and Cetitech. The luxury automaker said the moves will affect more than 500 jobs. Porsche Executive Board Chairman Michael Leiters described the actions as an “indispensable foundation for a suc...

SpaceX could invest as much as $119 billion to build its Terafab, a proposed semiconductor manufacturing and computing fabrication facility in Texas, according to local documents tied to a tax abatement request. The Commissioners Court of Grimes County will hold a public hearing on June 3 to consider the deal. The notice states that SpaceX would locate the multi-phase, vertically integrated Terafa...

he world’s largest producer of cane sugar is planning its largest-ever capital expenditure to overhaul a historic — and timeworn — refinery near New Orleans. American Sugar Refining this week broke ground on the first phase of what the company said would be a $785 million project to modernize the   — the largest sugar processing plant in the Western Hemisphere. Initial construction, which is alrea...

This morning, Corning and NVIDIA announced a multiyear commercial and technology partnership to significantly scale U.S.-based optical connectivity manufacturing and fiber production.  To meet accelerating demand for new AI factory buildouts (data centers), Corning will increase optical connectivity capacity by 10x and boost U.S. fiber production by more than 50%. These are the components NVIDIA n...

Hyundai placed a big bet on the future of humanoid robotics within its automotive manufacturing operations and it’s reportedly starting to get impatient with the results so far.  In 2021, Hyundai acquired a majority stake in Boston Dynamics for $1.1 billion in a deal designed to “leverage each other’s respective strengths in manufacturing, logistics, construction and automation.” The plan was to c...

On Friday, Bridgestone Golf, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Bridgestone Sports, announced plans to close its golf ball manufacturing and testing facility in Covington, Georgia. The closure will be abrupt, with the facility about 45 minutes east of Atlanta closing on June 30, 2026. The plant made up to a billion balls a year, but according to the company, it must optimize its global supply chain to st...

Ford Motor announced its Q1 financial results on Wednesday, and while the automaker experienced a 6% uptick in revenue to $43.3 billion, it also recorded a one-time swing from tariff refunds. Ford's Q1 results include a $1.3 billion one-time IEEPA tariff benefit for tariffs paid from March 2025 to February 2026. Still, challenges remain, like the fallout from the Novelis fire in September. Sh...

Auto parts supplier First Brands will retain 345 employees previously slated for layoffs at its TMD Tiffin facility in Ohio. The company announced in February that it would close the site and cut 407 workers on April 30. It now plans to keep 345 of them through May 31, with the remaining employees losing their jobs as scheduled. The February WARN notice listed impacted employees, which included pr...

Welcome to another episode of Gen Z in Manufacturing, a podcast that asks young people about their journeys in manufacturing, how they intend to influence the industry and what they are looking for from an employer. For this episode, I welcome Xavier Gonzalez and Jesse Tabango, two HVAC students at Texas State Technical College. We recorded the conversation live at Fluke’s Thought Leadership Day d...

Last September, Gerresheimer's stock plunged after German regulators announced an investigation into potential accounting rule violations and compliance irregularities.  The packaging maker's issues started when BaFin, Germany’s federal financial authority, began looking into a potential bill-and-hold scandal. The company may have recognized €35 million in inflated revenues for some cont...

A U.S. refrigerator factory will lay off 1,500 employees later this year ahead of a planned production change to laundry appliances including washing machines and dryers. Electrolux, a home appliance manufacturer based in Sweden, announced a retooling at its South Carolina plant as part of a new joint venture agreement with the Midea Group, which will own 45% of the facility. Food preservation pro...

JST Corp. is a Japanese company that makes electronic connectors found in nearly every industry, from the automotive and medical markets to robotics, gaming and even amusement. The company’s plant in Guntersville made every cable assembly used in The Las Vegas Sphere. This week, JST announced a new project, a $500 million expansion effort in North Alabama. The move will create 80 new jobs and add...

It’s clear that the goal of the United States tariffs on automobiles was to give American production a leg up. Adding costs to imports would - theoretically - encourage buyers to favor American-made vehicles, and encourage automakers to, perhaps, reshore their globally produced models. But as with many complex economic questions, the reality is a bit less straightforward – as evidenced by GM’s lat...

Senior defense officials in the Trump administration approached General Motors and Ford about supporting the U.S. military equipment supply chain, a source told the Detroit Free Press. The anonymous source said the separate conversations with CEOs Mary Barra and Jim Farley took place as early as last year. ****Original Post: https://www.ien.com/supply-chain/video/22965095/gm-ford-asked-to-support-...

An attorney preparing to file a federal lawsuit against a Tennessee explosives manufacturer over a deadly 2025 blast alleged this week that the company pushed its production beyond a safe level in an effort to fulfill a Pentagon contract. Darren Richie, who represents the families of two of the 16 people killed in the October explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems, said during a Friday news confe...

BMW will pull the iX, the automaker’s first dedicated electric SUV, from its U.S. lineup as it shifts focus to a next-generation electric vehicle platform, BMWBlog reported . A spokesperson stated that the company will prioritize upcoming Neue Klasse models, beginning with the iX3 SUV. BMW announced the iX in 2021 and began sales in 2022. The vehicle features an estimated range of up to 364 miles,...

The owner of a New Hampshire mustard company has been sentenced to prison for orchestrating a years-long scheme to send polluted water from his facility into a nearby river. Charles Santich, owner of the Old Dutch Mustard Company, was given an 18-month prison sentence while his company is being forced to pay $1.5 million for violating the Clean Water Act. The Greenville, New Hampshire facility, wh...

Volkswagen of America released its sales figures for Q1 2026 and the results were mixed.  Last week the automaker announced that it was going to stop assembling the ID.4 electric SUV in Chattanooga, Tennessee and retool to focus on the next-generation Atlas for model year 2027. Well, now, it's pretty clear why.  Top manufacturing news:  Slate Auto Raises $650M to Make $25,000 Trucks Podcast:...

Yesterday, Volkswagen announced plans to stop assembling the ID.4 electric SUV at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the EV market continues to "challenge the industry." Assembly will end quickly. VW says it will stop putting together the ID.4 in mid-April and that's (checks watch) five days away.  The automaker will retool to focus on "higher-volume" models and launc...

Firefighters in Ontario, California descended on a massive blaze just after midnight on Tuesday, when a distribution center erupted in flames. Local reports described an “orange glow” as the 1.2 million square foot warehouse burned for hours in a location the size of 11 city blocks, with smoke and flames reportedly visible for miles. The site is owned and operated by supply chain management compan...

Brighton Central School District near Rochester, New York, halted construction on athletic fields after its contractor uncovered undocumented historical fill beneath the topsoil. The school district said the material likely dates back to 1830, when a brick manufacturer reportedly occupied the land.  Materials found during early site preparation in January included ash, cinders, brick, glass, ceram...

Last week, following a four-week trial, an Alabama jury handed boat repairman Mark Griffin a $70 million victory after he contracted a flesh-eating bacteria in 2019. According to Griffin's lawsuit, Tyson and industrial plumbing contractor Hydraservice were responsible for a large wastewater spill that led to his infection.  In June 2019, Tyson’s River Valley Ingredients facility in Hanceville...

Luxury vehicle makers have a way of upping the ante, with features that seem more and more unique, opulent and, perhaps, unnecessary. When INFINITI recently unveiled its newest QX65 SUV, it led with the vehicle’s unorthodox paint color: dubbed Sunfire Red, this coating is described by the company as “something people will remember.” That’s because the rich paint hue, inspired by a "fiery morn...

A member of the Senate’s transportation oversight committee said this week that he hopes to effectively “seal off” the U.S. from vehicles made by Chinese automakers. U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said during remarks ahead of the New York Auto Show that he would introduce a bill in the coming weeks to strengthen an existing ban on Chinese vehicles, Reuters reported. Rules finalized under the Bid...

Most people look at the abandoned former General Motors plant site in Janesville, Wisconsin and see a fenced-off, 250-acre plot contaminated with heavy metals and “forever chemicals” after decades of automotive manufacturing. But some just see a nice new home for an AI data center complex. According to Politico , the site, which has sat idle for years, could now be snapped up by a Colorado-based i...