Elon Musk appeared to be in a defiant mood Wednesday when he stood before employees at Tesla’s factory near Berlin a week after an arsonist set fire to a high-voltage power pylon and brought production to a standstill. “They can’t stop us,” Mr. Musk, the company’s chief executive, told workers in a giant tent beside […]
Read MoreTag: Factories and Manufacturing
VW Workers in Chattanooga Seek Vote to Join Union
Volkswagen employees in Tennessee who are hoping to join the United Automobile Workers asked a federal agency on Monday to hold an election, a key step toward the union’s longtime goal of organizing nonunion factories across the South. With the union’s backing, Volkswagen workers filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board asking for […]
Read MoreMalaysia Rises as Crucial Link in Chip Supply Chain
Construction cranes still surround the brand-spanking new plant in Kulim’s industrial park in Malaysia. But inside, legions of workers hired by the Austrian tech giant AT&S are already gearing up to produce at full capacity by year’s end. Outfitted in head-to-toe coveralls, with oversized safety glasses and hard hats, they’re reminiscent of the worker bees […]
Read MoreBoeing Whistleblower Who Raised Quality Concerns Is Found Dead
A prominent Boeing whistle-blower, a former quality manager who raised concerns about manufacturing practices at the company’s 787 Dreamliner factory in South Carolina, was found dead on Saturday with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to local officials. The whistle-blower, John Barnett, was in Charleston for a deposition for a lawsuit in […]
Read MoreChina’s Exports Surge Are Drawing a Global Backlash
China’s factory exports are powering ahead faster than almost anyone expected, putting jobs around the world in jeopardy and setting off a backlash that is gaining momentum. From steel and cars to consumer electronics and solar panels, Chinese factories are finding more overseas buyers for goods. The world’s appetite for its goods is welcomed by […]
Read MoreFAA Audit of Boeing’s 737 Max Production Found Dozens of Issues
A six-week audit by the Federal Aviation Administration of Boeing’s production of the 737 Max jet found dozens of problems throughout the manufacturing process at the plane maker and one of its key suppliers, according to a slide presentation reviewed by The New York Times. The air-safety regulator initiated the examination after a door panel […]
Read MoreBMW Is a Surprise Winner in Electric Vehicles
As BMW car bodies glided down an assembly line in Munich recently, showered by sparks from robotic welders, it was hard to tell which vehicles would be powered by batteries, fuel-burning engines or both. In the view of many analysts, that is not a good thing. The German automaker’s electric vehicles are made on the […]
Read MoreToyota’s Hybrid-First Strategy Is Delivering Big Profits
In today’s high-tech, high-stakes auto industry, fortunes can change quickly, and there’s no better example of that right now than Toyota Motor. Not long ago, it looked as if Toyota had fallen dangerously behind in electric vehicles. Tesla, the electric car pioneer, has grown rapidly and become the world’s most valuable automaker. Seeing Tesla’s success, […]
Read MoreHow China Came to Dominate the World in Solar Energy
China unleashed the full might of its solar energy industry last year. It installed more solar panels than the United States has in its history. It cut the wholesale price of panels it sells by nearly half. And its exports of fully assembled solar panels climbed 38 percent while its exports of key components almost […]
Read MoreNearly Half the States Sue E.P.A. Over New Limits on Deadly Pollution
Manufacturers and 24 states sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday over the Biden administration’s decision to tighten limits on fine industrial particles, one of the most common and deadliest forms of air pollution. The state lawsuits are led by Republican attorneys general and argue that the E.P.A. overstepped its authority last month when it […]
Read MoreBig Labor Gamble: Push to Unionize Every U.S. Auto Plant
When Shawn Fain, the United Automobile Workers president, unveiled the deal that ended six weeks of strikes at Ford Motor in the fall, he framed it as part of a longer campaign. Next, he declared, would be the task of organizing nonunion plants across the country. “One of our biggest goals coming out of this […]
Read MoreVolkswagen Sees Electric Vehicles as a Way to Grow in the U.S.
Probably only Americans of a certain age remember when the Volkswagen Beetle was the best-selling imported car in the United States and the hippest ride to a Grateful Dead concert was a Volkswagen Microbus. Volkswagen is trying to tap some of that nostalgia in its latest push to regain the status and sales it enjoyed […]
Read MoreFor Michigan’s Economy, Electric Vehicles Are Promising and Scary
Last fall, Tiffanie Simmons, a second-generation autoworker, endured a six-week strike at the Ford Motor factory just west of Detroit where she builds Bronco S.U.V.s. That yielded a pay raise of 25 percent over the next four years, easing the pain of reductions that she and other union workers swallowed more than a decade ago. […]
Read MoreU.S. Awards $1.5 Billion to Chipmaker GlobalFoundries
The Biden administration on Monday announced a $1.5 billion award to the New York-based chipmaker GlobalFoundries, one of the first sizable grants from a government program aimed at revitalizing semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. As part of the plan to bolster GlobalFoundries, the administration will also make available another $1.6 billion in federal loans. […]
Read MorePlans to Expand U.S. Chip Manufacturing Are Running Into Obstacles
In December 2022, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the key maker of the world’s most cutting-edge chips, said it planned to spend $40 billion in Arizona on its first major U.S. hub for semiconductor production. The much ballyhooed project outside Phoenix — with two new factories, including one with more advanced technology — became a symbol […]
Read MoreVolkswagen and BASF Are Reconsidering Ties to Xinjiang, China
Volkswagen Group is reviewing the future of its joint venture in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China and another German industrial giant is starting to sell its stakes there following new international scrutiny of forced labor by predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. Volkswagen said last week that it was in discussions with one of its main […]
Read MoreJoe Louis Dudley, Pioneering Hair Care Entrepreneur, Dies at 86
Joe Louis Dudley, who expanded a kitchen-table business that he started with his wife at the time into one of the largest Black-owned hair care companies in the Southeast, and who founded schools that trained tens of thousands of cosmetologists, died on Feb. 8 at his home in Kernersville, N.C., a suburb of Winston-Salem, He […]
Read MoreThis Arctic Circle Town Expected a Green Energy Boom. Then Came Bidenomics.
In Mo i Rana, a small Norwegian industrial town on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, a cavernous gray factory sits empty and unfinished in the snowy twilight — a monument to unfulfilled economic hope. The electric battery company Freyr was partway through constructing this hulking facility when the Biden administration’s sweeping climate bill passed […]
Read MoreWhy Boeing’s Top Airplanes Keep Failing
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Read MoreHow China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer
China’s BYD was a battery manufacturer trying its hand at building cars when it showed off its newest model in 2007. American executives at the Guangzhou auto show gaped at the car’s uneven purple paint job and the poor fit of its doors. “They were the laughingstock of the industry,” said Michael Dunne, a China […]
Read MoreCultivated Meat’s Empty Promise of Revolution
It is a gleaming vision of a world just beyond the present: a world in which meat is abundant and affordable with almost no cost to the environment. Animal slaughter is forgotten. Global warming is restrained. At the heart of the vision is a high-tech factory housing steel tanks as tall as apartment buildings and […]
Read MoreFor First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China
In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container to China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity. In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found […]
Read MoreBiden Administration Toughens Limits on Deadly Air Pollution
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday tightened limits on fine industrial particles, one of the most common and deadliest forms of air pollution, for the first time in a decade. Business groups immediately objected, saying the new regulation could raise costs and hurt manufacturing jobs across the country. Public health organizations said the pollution rules […]
Read MoreMcDonald’s, Costco and Other Companies Crack Down on Child Labor in the U.S.
Many major U.S. companies — including some of the country’s biggest consumer brands — say they are taking steps to eliminate child labor in their domestic supply chains amid revelations that children are working throughout American manufacturing and food production. As hundreds of thousands of migrant children have crossed the southern border without their parents […]
Read MoreAlaska Airlines 737 May Have Left Boeing Factory Missing Bolts, N.T.S.B. Says
Four bolts used to secure the panel that ultimately blew off an Alaska Airlines plane during a flight last month were removed — and appear not to have been replaced — at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Wash., according to a preliminary report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The panel, known as a […]
Read MoreFAA Chief Pledges ‘More Boots on the Ground’ to Monitor Boeing
The Federal Aviation Administration’s top official told a House panel on Tuesday that the agency would step up its on-the-ground presence monitoring Boeing’s aircraft production. The official, Mike Whitaker, appeared before lawmakers one month after a door panel blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet while in flight, raising new questions about Boeing’s […]
Read MoreBoeing, Still Recovering From Max 8 Crashes, Faces a New Crisis
After two deadly crashes involving its best-selling 737 Max 8 planes five years ago, Boeing spent billions of dollars to make its products safer and repair its reputation. Now, the company is again confronting a wave of uncertainty and costs following a harrowing incident involving a different 737 jet. Just four weeks ago, a hole […]
Read MoreHow Nevada Is Pushing to Generate Jobs Beyond the Casinos
Before the pandemic brought everyday life to a halt, Joe Kiele supported himself through the industry that dominates Nevada’s economy. He waited tables at a steakhouse inside a casino in Reno. Four years later, Mr. Kiele, 49, remains in Reno, yet he now spends his workday inside a factory. In place of worrying about the […]
Read MoreA City Built on Steel Tries to Reverse Its Decline
Gary, Ind., was once a symbol of American innovation. The home of U.S. Steel’s largest mill, Gary churned out the product that built America’s bridges, tunnels and skyscrapers. The city reaped the rewards, with a prosperous downtown and vibrant neighborhoods. Gary’s smokestacks are still prominent along Lake Michigan’s sandy shore, starkly juxtaposed between the eroding […]
Read More6 Reasons That It’s Hard to Get Your Wegovy and Other Weight-Loss Prescriptions
Talk to people who have tried to get one of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs, like Wegovy, and they’ll probably have a story about the hoops they had to jump through to get their medication — if they could get it at all. Emily Weaver, a nurse practitioner in Cary, N.C., said she told her […]
Read MorePollution Is Driving Black Americans to the South. It May Not Be Any Better.
The air pollution in Emma Lockridge’s community in Detroit was often so bad, she had to wear a surgical mask inside her house. The smokestacks of nearby refineries and factories filled the sky outside her windows with black particles. “I couldn’t sleep because of those fumes,” she told me last year. In 2021 she fled […]
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