SAN FRANCISCO--The battle for the midsized, middle-class electric car market is revving up as high-tech upstart Tesla scrambles to get its Model 3 out to buyers in the face of strong competition from Detroit mainstay General Motors, reports Seeker. Deliveries of the GM-produced Chevy Bolt have increased significantly, while Tesla continues to deal with persistent production delays.
LANCASTER, CA--Electric vehicle manufacturer BYD announced this week another expansion to its electric bus and battery module factory here. The expansion will add 100,000 square feet to the facility when it comes online at the end of June. It will be used to store parts and components for BYD’s products, freeing up manufacturing space and allowing for better use of the space in its primary manufacturing building.
LONG BEACH, CA--Last Sunday night, Elon Musk shared a photo of the tooling that will be used to make carbon-fiber composites for the SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) spaceship, reports Ars Technica. SpaceX intends to manufacture the BFR components near its Hawthorne, CA, headquarters for easy shipping to test sites and launch pads.
BIRMINGHAM, AL--Alabama’s auto sector has taken off in the past 20 years. From next to nothing, it has become the fifth-largest state for auto manufacturing, fueled by German and Asian carmakers, and it's growing. With new jobs coming, analysts expect Alabama to move up in state auto manufacturing rankings in coming years.
WASHINGTON--The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, reported Monday that its manufacturing index slipped to 59.3 last month from February's reading of 60.8, which had been the highest since 2004. Any score above 50 signals growth.
WASHINGTON--The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has discovered that electricity use in the U.S. manufacturing sector has declined in recent years, reports DailyEnergyInsider.com. The EIA found, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census Annual Survey of Manufacturers, that many manufacturers generate their own electricity in addition to pulling directly from the electric grid. From 2006 through 2016, the manufacturing sector purchased 87 to 89 percent of their electricity from the grid and generated the remaining 11 to 13 percent on site.
SAN FRANCISCO--Ken Goldberg, a professor at UC Berkeley, and one of his graduate students, Jeff Mahler, recently demonstrated the latest version of a dexterous collaborative robot at EmTech Digital, an event held here this week organized by MIT Technology Review (MTR) and dedicated to artificial intelligence. The key to the robot's dexterity is not in its mechanical grippers but in its brain, reports the MTR website. The robot uses software called Dex-Net to determine how to pick up even odd-looking objects with incredible efficiency.
CANTON, MA--According to SportTechie.com, Reebok has unveiled a limited-edition 3D-printed running shoe, the Floatride, that replaces traditional shoelaces with a liquid lace system, in which printed materials are wrapped around the outsole like a vine.
BERLIN--Volkswagen is about to end production of the Beetle—better known to many drivers as "the Bug." VW initially ended production in 2003, but brought the car back in 2011. Volkswagen officials say production won’t be restarted anytime soon.
SWINDON, UK--Honda’s car assembly plant here produces the Civic Type-R and every Honda Civic Hatchback imported to the U.S. Watch the Honda Civic Type-R be assembled in this real-time video.
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