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Trade Wars
GM Ruled U.S. Auto Sales for 100 Years. Now Toyota Is Closing In.
Twenty years ago, GM sold twice as many cars and trucks in the U.S. as Toyota. Today that lead has dwindled to just over 100,000 vehicles through July. Toyota is quickly closing the sales gap with GM, threatening to end the American auto giant’s nearly 100-year reign atop the U.S. auto market. Even as the entire new-car market shrinks, GM stands out for selling fewer vehicles, following a strategic decision to kill off traditional sedans and hold the line on profits rather than chase volume with deals and discounts. The result is that the company is making more money and winning over Wall Street.
Toyota, meanwhile, is pumping out a string of new models, capitalizing on surging demand for hybrids, and investing billions to expand American production in places like Texas and Kentucky—pivots that come as the company faces more stagnant car markets abroad. The company—the world’s largest automaker by sales—is roughly twice as profitable as GM and recently raised its annual earnings forecast, saying it will benefit from a weaker yen and smaller impact from the Iran war. Both automakers say that market share is only one metric when it comes to how they measure success. A GM spokesman said it also has vehicles in short supply that have constrained sales. Both Toyota and GM have each sold about 1.5 million vehicles this year.
Read more at The WSJ
CACI Opens Defense Electronics Manufacturing COE in New York
CACI International recently held a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the opening of its Manufacturing Center of Excellence for Defense Electronics in the Greater Rochester, New York, area, expanding the company’s manufacturing footprint and long-term investment in the region. The company said last weed the 61,000-square-foot facility increases its manufacturing space by more than 300 percent.
The facility is intended to support production, delivery, training, customer acceptance testing and onsite storage for CACI’s Terrestrial Layer System Brigade Combat Team Manpack, or TLS BCT Manpack, program with the U.S. Army. TLS BCT Manpack is CACI’s electronic warfare technology for dismounted soldiers, designed to support operations in the electromagnetic battlespace. The company said the center provides room for expansion to produce additional software-defined electronic warfare capabilities at scale. The facility’s work supports dozens of manufacturing and fabrication small business suppliers across upstate New York.
Read more at Executive Biz
Siemens PLCs Targeted by Cybercriminals
The National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) announced on Wednesday that threat actors using AI-generated code targeted Siemens S7 Series programmable logic controller (PLCs). In plainer English… Cybercriminals are using AI to attack a piece of hardware that very well might be running on your shop floor.
According to BleepingComputer, these AI-generated attack tools are designed to mimic legitimate monitoring software for Siemens S7 series PLC devices. The custom attack tools constantly monitor the PLCs looking for vulnerabilities and possibly preparing threat actors to launch the attacks that could steal data, shut down equipment on the floor or otherwise interrupt normal operations. The targeted PLCs include the S7-200, S7-300, S7-400, S7-1200 and S7-1500 models. According to CISA, top mitigation strategies include inventorying all Siemens PLCs, applying security patches, making sure PLCs cannot access the internet, and monitoring for unauthorized activity or anomalies that may indicate compromised security.
Read more at IndustryWeek
Robot Boxing, Football And Sprinting At World Humanoid Games
Chinese humanoid robots broke records set by humans, including beating Usain Bolt’s 100-meter sprint world record, on the opening day of the Olympics-like World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday. More than 2,000 humanoid robots were participating in the event, the organizer said. The five-day games, now in its second year, are a spectacle demonstrating China’s rapid progress in advanced robotics as the technology race with the U.S. heats up, with 51 events and more than 1,000 competitions taking place including running, table tennis and soccer.
At Saturday’s opening of the robot games, the organizer and robot makers said that Chinese humanoid robots defeated human world records, as hundreds of humanoid robots marched in formation onto the field in a massive display of synchronized coordination. This year’s robot games — which the organizer said has 16 countries participating, among them Germany, Japan and the U.S. — also include other events such as weightlifting and tug of war.
Read more, watch at BBC
Micron Adds $10B Memory Lab To Its Idaho Expansion Plans
Micron is building on its Idaho fab investment plans with Micron Research Labs, which will focus on critical memory technologies, advanced memory and compute architectures, packaging, future semiconductor manufacturing and other key areas, the company said in a news release. Billed as the first dedicated memory research hub of its kind in the United States, the Boise-based facility will fund “extensive university collaborations, global satellite labs and deep ecosystem partnerships,” creating a research network focused on advanced AI technologies.
The lab will be connected to Micron’s research and technology footprint across the U.S., Europe, Japan, India, Singapore and Taiwan. Micron expects to break ground in 2027. Micron’s new Boise research hub will “look beyond a 10-year horizon while helping build the next generation of memory researchers and technology leaders,” the company said.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
Deere Lifts Sales Guidance, Bolstered By Data Center Construction
Deere posted higher profit and sales in its fiscal third quarter, as continued growth in the company’s construction equipment business helped to offset ongoing weakness in its production agriculture segment. The company posted a profit of $1.38 billion for its three months ended Aug. 2, compared with $1.29 billion in last year’s comparable period. On a per-share basis, quarterly earnings of $5.10 a share topped the $4.69 a share that analysts polled by FactSet expected.
Net sales and revenues climbed 6.2% to $11 billion, ahead of Wall Street models for $10.81 billion. The total top-line figure came in at $12.61 billion. Sales across the company’s production and precision agriculture division—its largest business unit—came in at $4 billion, down 6.4% from a year ago. The company attributed the decrease primarily to lower shipment volumes. Deere raised the low-end of its net income outlook to $4.75 billion from $5.0 billion, while maintaining the high end at $5 billion.
Read more at the WSJ
Port Of Los Angeles Preps For Cargo Bump As Shippers Navigate Global Risks
The Port of Los Angeles is planning for a 5% year over year uptick in cargo volumes, in the next six to eight months, as conflict in the Red Sea persists and draft restrictions from the Panama Canal have begun, Executive Director Gene Seroka said during a media briefing on Tuesday. While Seroka said the uptick in volume is not a promise, he said the port is prepping though conversations with the Harbor Trucking Association, marine terminal operators, shipping lines and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Due to the ongoing concerns at the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, “more cargo is going to be flowing through the West Coast ports and primarily here to southern California,” Seroka said. He added that “seeing different routes, like ones through the West Coast, can not only cut down on transit time, but also the cost associated with shipping those goods.”
Read more at Supply Chain Dive
Airbus Targets A350F Maiden Flight In September, Sources Say
Airbus has tentatively set the first flight of its delayed A350F freighter for late September as it tries to loosen Boeing's grip on airborne trade, industry sources said on Tuesday. The schedule, which could slip into early October, leaves the European planemaker with a finely balanced certification timeline as it aims to complete flight testing and achieve the first delivery to customers before the end of next year. Flight trials usually take 12 to 15 months, industry sources say.
Originally launched in 2021 with a goal of entering service four years later, the dedicated freighter version of Airbus's A350 long-haul jet family aims to penetrate a corner of the aircraft market long dominated by Boeing. Airbus has sold 107 of the lightweight composite A350F cargo planes, compared with 38 of a smaller and older A330F model. Reuters reported in May that Airbus was facing delays in cargo doors built by Airbus in Spain for the new freighter.
Read more at London South East
U.S. Refiners Capitalize as Buyers Vie for Shrinking Diesel Supply
Diesel buyers are competing for shrinking supply amid disruptions in Russia and the Middle East, with the U.S. at the center of a scramble that could intensify into the winter. The squeeze across the global refined-product markets, where gasoline, diesel and jet fuel compete for the same refinery capacity, is pushing prices higher. The margin, or crack spread between the price of West Texas Intermediate crude and diesel futures hit $101.86 last week, the first time the margin has hit triple digits. The average on-highway price for a gallon of diesel, meanwhile, rose about 20 cents to $5.45 in the week ending Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
American refiners are capitalizing on the extraordinary refining margins, sending more fuel into international markets: Exports of distillate fuel—including diesel and heating oil—rose to 1.9 million barrels a day in the first week of August, the highest weekly number on record. The surge is helping fill the global supply gap, but leaves the domestic market with a thinner cushion, with inventories at their lowest level for this time of year in three decades.
Read more at The WSJ
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