Sheet Metal Stamping Simulation

etail sales and industrial production both rose in December, indicating that the U.S. economic recovery is picking up as the new year begins.

Purchases climbed 0.6 percent, capping the biggest annual increase in more than a decade, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Output at factories, mines and utilities increased 0.8 percent, the most in five months, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

It's a good time to be an engineer looking for a job at an automotive company. That's because Ford recently announced that it plans to add 7000 hourly and salaried jobs between this year and the next across the U.S.In nine cities including Detroit, Ford is searching for engineers specializing in batteries, system controls, software, and energy storage to advance the technology of electric vehicles.

General Motors (GM.N) is planning to build small battery electric vehicles in China within two years, and to increase overall production in China to meet local demand, executives said on Monday.

The small "city" type battery electric vehicles are expected to be exported at some point, possibly even to the United States, Tim Lee, GM's chief of international operations said on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show.

"We are probably within a couple of years of being in ... production on battery electric vehicles specifically for China," Lee said told reporters.

GM, which completed the largest ever IPO last year, is focusing on China and the United States as two critical markets.

Louisiana regulators say contaminated soil has been cleaned up at a former General Motors plant where headlights were built.

When Lear Corp. (LEA-N109.362.622.45%) turned out the lights nearly two years ago at a plant in Ajax, Ont., that made seats for GM pickup trucks, Steve Batchelor knew it was game over. There was no hope of it ever reopening, he believed. “We were finished.”

In the grim days of May, 2009, leading up the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by General Motors Corp., it was hard to see how the auto industry could be turned around.

Thanks to millions of dollars of investment and a restructuring of its operations in Africa, General MotorsGeneral Motors has been able to cut costs and increase its market share in three years, explained Rajeev Chaba, managing director and chairman for General Motors' North African operations.

A former General Motors metal-stamping plant in western Michigan that closed in 2009 is expected to be demolished and the site redeveloped for advanced manufacturing, food processing or other industrial use under plans announced Thursday.

Led by new Gov. John Kasich, a delegation of top Ohio officials met Wednesday with auto industry executives at the previews of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Their message was that the Buckeye state "is open for business" if the automakers are looking to expand.

St. Petersburg is turning into Russia’s automobile construction centre. Two car-making factories at a time are due to be opened there later today.

When Alabama began attracting automotive manufacturers 15 years ago, it was the genesis of a southern car corridor that made national headlines. 

Canadian automotive components giant Magna International has beefed up its presence in the fast-expanding US electric vehicle market this week after its Magna E-Car Systems venture opened a new electric vehicle development and testing facility in Michigan.

On his campaign website, Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. claims that his outreach to Mercedes-Benz led to a $7 billion flood of auto industry investment that brought more than 50,000 jobs to Alabama. “When I served as Alabama's Governor,” Folsom claims on the site, “I was told it was a dream to believe Mercedes would choose Alabama to build its first American manufacturing plant, but my administration rolled up our sleeves and made it happen. Today, Alabama is home to multiple auto plants and over 50,000 direct jobs because that vision and persistence led the way with Mercedes. Since then, the automobile industry has invested over $7 billion in Alabama.”

A new contract from General Motors will give a Windsor, Ont., factory hope for the future and secure 230 jobs.

Along with school boards across the country, the Brandywine Community Schools Board of Education takes a look each year at its budgetary issues, what programs it can afford to keep and what courses won’t be offered in the next year.Around the time of budget planning last year, board members were told of Chris Inman’s machine tool tech class he teaches to all grades as well as his manufacturing academy course, which is taught on site at Lake Michigan College’s Bertrand Crossings Campus to students from schools like Brandywine, Niles, Buchanan and Berrien Springs.

At the site where the steel for the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis was put together and shipped down to its destination in the 1960s, a service center on Neville Island today is on track to ship more than 200,000 tons of steel from its huge warehouses along the Ohio River.