DETROIT-The new battery manufacturing plant proposed by A123 Systems for southeast Michigan will be highly automated. About 80 percent of the jobs in the plant are expected to be manufacturing positions. MORE
BLUE SPRINGS, MS-Mississippi will recoup some of the money it put toward Toyota Motor Corp.’s planned automobile assembly plant here, despite the project’s delay. Beginning in 2010, the Japanese automaker will pay its portion of the debt service with $10 million annual payments. At the same time, it will begin making $5 million annual payments to North Mississippi school districts. MORE
About 80 percent of Johnson Controls Inc. employees laid off from their jobs at JCI’s Oakland Parkway facility are expected to return to work Feb. 9 when GM’s Spring Hill manufacturing plant reopens for business. More than 100 of those who work at the Columbia plant were put on indefinite leave Dec. 23. MORE
DUBLIN, Ireland-U.S. computer maker Dell Inc. is cutting its Irish workforce by about 1,900 and shifting its European manufacturing operations to Poland in an effort to boost profits. MORE
LANSING, MI-After winning $7.3 million in state tax incentives, Global Wind Systems Inc. is on track to become Michigan's first manufacturer of utility-scale wind turbines. MORE
BEIJING-China’s fast-growing Chery Automobile Co, posted a 6.6 percent decline in annual sales in 2008 as the ongoing downturn in the economy hit consumer spending both at home and abroad. MORE
INDIANAPOLIS-Battery developer EnerDel Inc. has applied for $480 million in low-interest federal loans through a new program intended to help U.S. automakers and their suppliers build more fuel-efficient cars. EnerDel would use the money to double the manufacturing capacity at its plants in Indianapolis and Noblesville, IN, lifting production of lithium-ion battery packs for hybrid vehicles to 600,000 by 2011. MORE
CHATHAM, Ontario-Navistar International Corp. is cutting 200 jobs at its truck plant in Ontario, raising concerns the company may soon close the plant entirely. MORE
TOKYO-Toyota Motor Corp. is asking it unionized workers in Japan to accept a pay cut at the same time it extends a domestic production halt to cope with plummeting demand for new automobiles. MORE
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