Manufacturing/Plants

The automotive industry is getting more evidence that it's time to expand product offerings or switch over to another business. A new study by the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) says the "driving boom" is over. While Baby Boomers loved their cars, their kids - aka Gen Y or Millennials - ...

Oil companies and other supporters of the fossil fuel status quo have been using a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to attack California's landmark clean energy bill AB32, particularly the bill's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). Oil companies have been particularly irate that the LCFS ...

Mitsubishi is looking to make up for lost ground from some fire-related issues by doubling production of its Outlander Plug-in Hybrid vehicle (PHEV) in Japan, Green Car Reports says. The Japanese automaker will ramp up to 4,000 Outlander PHEVs a month, up from the 2,000-unit target it set last ...

Hyundai's green-cred future's so bright, its factory roof's gotta wear shades. The South Korean automaker will install that country's largest solar-panel system when it deploys about 40,000 solar voltaic panels on the roof of its Asan plant later this year. The system will cover about 2.2 ...

It looks like the last hand's been played at those reputed card games that not-so-busy employees at LG Chem's lithium-ion battery factory in Michigan were playing. The South Korean company is planning to start production of batteries for the Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in in July, with the ...

Demand for the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid is strong enough that Ford will change the production mix from 20 percent to 30 percent hybrids for the 2014 model year. It's part of an overall MKZs comeback, which saw sales increase in April sales now that the car is no longer quite as slow to roll of the ...

The 2013 Nissan Leaf was improved thanks to customer input and, earlier this year, Nissan started building the all-electric car in Tennessee (and, of course, now also in the UK). These two changes helped the world's best-selling EV reach its the best month of US sales ever in March – we ...

Two days after a Congressional hearing about a US Department of Energy loan to Fisker Automotive, Bob Lutz wrote a column pondering what should be done to stop the financial hemorrhaging at the company that builds – well, used to build – the Karma extended-range sports car. When Lutz ...

GreenTech Automotive may have lost its founder, but it has renewed an integral growth strategy – partnerships with Chinese automakers. The Mississippi-based electric car company has made an agreement with Chinese automaker JAC (Jianghuai Automobile Co.) to bring 2,000 battery electric ...

The most recent companywide sustainability report from Volkswagen comes in at a tidy 168 pages. Here's hoping not too many folks took out trees by printing the whole thing out. Europe's biggest automaker said it has reduced the amount of both energy and water required to make each vehicle by 10 ...