BEIJING—On September 1, a new cybersecurity law in China takes effect that tightens rules on how data can be collected and shared with third parties in the automotive and other industries.

STUTTGART, Germany—Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz brand plans to become all-electric by the end of this decade. Shifting from electric-first to electric-only, the car company is accelerating toward an emissions-free and software-driven future.

ITZEHOE, Germany—After three years of development, ElectricBrangs AG has built a fully functional prototype of the XBUS, a lightweight modular electric vehicle. Production is set to begin here in mid-2022.

BAY CITY, MI—SK Siltron CSS, a semiconductor wafer manufacturer, recently announced plans to invest $300 million over the next three years to provide manufacturing and R&D capabilities of advanced materials for electric vehicles in a new facility here.

FRANKFURT—Preliminary data by the International Federation of Robotics shows a 19 percent sales increase of industrial robots to China in 2020, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, nearly 167,000 industrial robots were delivered there last year.

DIXON, CA—Henkel has achieved zero production waste to landfill status at its resin 3D printing facility here.

MONZA, Italy—Polyolefin manufacturer Borealis has announced that it is installing a solar photovoltaic rooftop array at its plant here to generate electricity for production purposes. Interestingly, the array's modules use Borealis' Quentys encapsulant film technology.

ANN ARBOR, MI—North American robot orders in the first quarter of 2021 were up 20 percent over the same period in 2020, according to industry statistics released by the Association for Advancing Automation.