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Trade Wars
The Factory Workers Who Build the Power Grid by Hand
In a factory not far from the North Carolina state line, Robin Cisco walks her fingers across hundreds of feet of paper-insulated copper wire. Cisco is a “winder” at Hitachi Energy’s transformer factory in southern Virginia where she twists wire by hand around a giant cylinder. The pattern will eventually create the heart of an electric transformer that takes four to six weeks to build and is the size of a small garage. Soaring demand means the wait list for the crucial equipment is yearslong. The growth of the U.S. electric grid depends on factory workers like Cisco, whose craft can take three to five years to master and can’t be fully automated.
The manual precision and specialty materials required are among many reasons that the U.S. is struggling to meet the surging electricity needs of the artificial-intelligence frenzy. Transformers are used to step up voltage from power plants to send electricity onto the grid, or to step down voltage so it can be used by cities, neighborhoods and large customers such as factories, data centers and oil-and-gas facilities. New ones are needed every time a new source of power generation or a big customer connects to the grid. They can be as large as buildings or as small as garbage cans. The ones made in South Boston can weigh up to 285,000 pounds, roughly the equivalent of 24 elephants or 65 pickup trucks.
Read more at The WSJ
Consumers Returning To ICE Vehicles, EY Global Study Suggests
Global car buyers are turning back to the internal combustion engine vehicles, as demand for electric vehicles continues to wane, and this includes data suggesting a lowering desire for hybrids. That’s the findings from of two analysts working for Ernst & Young (EY), who claim that half of global car buyers are planning to choose an ICE powered vehicles as their next purchase, a jump of 13% from 2024 data.
Range anxiety, poor charging infrastructure and geopolitical pressures are cited as causes for a growing reluctance to make the switch to EVs. The EY Mobility Consumer Index study also pointed out that while consumers have a growing appetite for connected vehicle features, higher ownership costs attributed to EVs is a concern for around 40% of car buyers.
Read more at Wards Auto
Roomba Maker iRobot Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Seeks Acquisition By Contract Manufacturer
iRobot Corp., a maker of robotic vacuums and mops, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday in an effort to reduce its debt load and restructure to become a private company. The Massachusetts-based company notified investors that it entered into an agreement to be acquired by secured lender and primary contract manufacturer Shenzhen Picea Robotics Co. through a court-supervised process. If approved, Picea would receive all of iRobot’s equity interests under the deal’s terms, improving the financially distressed company’s balance sheet for future operations. iRobot said it expects to complete the Chapter 11 process by February 2026.
The Roomba and Braava maker is making this move following a multi-year market downturn and failed acquisition by Amazon. iRobot’s full-year revenue peaked in 2021 at nearly $1.6 billion, driven in part by pandemic-fueled demand. The company debuted its first Roomba vacuum in 2002, and has since sold millions of robots worldwide. However, sales in recent years have declined due to supply chain issues and growing competition from international companies.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
US’ New Hypersonic Missile Can Hit Targets 2,175-Mile Away In Just 20 Minutes
US Army officials have disclosed new details about America’s long-range hypersonic weapon program during a recent visit by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, offering a clearer picture of the reach and intended role of the Army’s first operational hypersonic strike system. Dark Eagle is a trailer-launched, ground-based hypersonic boost-glide weapon designed to strike high-value, time-sensitive targets at extreme distances.
After launch, the missile boosts a glide vehicle to hypersonic speeds, exceeding Mach 5, before the vehicle separates and maneuvers through the atmosphere toward its target. Its speed, maneuverability, and depressed flight profile are intended to complicate detection and interception by advanced air and missile defenses. Lt. Gen. Francisco Lozano, the Army’s director for hypersonic, directed energy, space, and rapid acquisition, told Hegseth that Dark Eagle has a range of about 3,500 kilometers, or roughly 2,175 miles. The briefing, which C-SPAN recorded, included Lozano’s remarks that the weapon could theoretically reach mainland China if launched from Guam, Moscow from Western Europe, or Tehran from the Gulf region.
Read more at Interesting Engineering
2026 Will Be The Year of Obesity Pills From Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly
2026 is likely the year that two new oral weight loss drugs will reach patients in the U.S. For some people, pills may serve as a more convenient – and potentially in certain cases cheaper – alternative to today’s blockbuster injections. Drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have said their daily pills could help the drugs reach new patients. That could include people who are afraid of needles or patients who might benefit from the existing injections but don’t take them because they don’t view their need as severe enough.
The upcoming pills aren’t expected to be more effective than weekly injections, but health experts stress that expanding the range of treatment options could still be a major win for patients. After the injections hit nationwide supply shortages in recent years, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have already started preparing enough of their pills to meet expected demand. In the August note, Goldman analysts said they expect Eli Lilly’s pill to have a 60% share – or roughly $13.6 billion – of the daily oral segment of the market in 2030. They expect Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide to have a 21% share – or around $4 billion – of that segment. It expects the remaining 19% slice to go to other emerging pills, the analysts said.
Read more at CNBC
Tesla Stock Closes At Record As Investors Rally Around Musk’s Robotaxi Hype
What started off as a particularly rough year for Tesla investors is turning into quite the celebration. Following a 36% plunge in the first quarter, the stock’s worst period since 2022, Tesla shares have rallied all the way back, reaching an all-time closing high of $489.88, jumping 3.1% on Tuesday. They’re now up 21% for the year. The prior intraday high was $488.54, reached almost exactly a year ago, and the previous record close was $479.86.
The stock got a spark this week after CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, said Tesla has been testing driverless vehicles in Austin, Texas with no occupants on board, almost six months after launching a pilot program with safety drivers. Tesla operates a Robotaxi-branded ridehailing service in Texas and California but the vehicles include drivers or human safety supervisors on board for now.
Read more at CNBC
Texas Instruments' $40B Texas Factory Begins Production
In May, Texas Instruments Inc. completed the first of four planned semiconductor plants at its 1,200-acre site off U.S. 75 in Sherman, the Dallas Business Journal previously reported. The factory is located in Sherman, a town of about 45,000 people near the Oklahoma border. Today, Wednesday, Dec. 17, the company will celebrate the grand opening of its "state-of-the-art" factory before starting production at the facility, the company said. The new facility broke ground in May 2022.
The Sherman site represents about $40 billion in investment and will create about 3,000 new TI jobs, plus an estimated thousands of indirect job growth, the company said. The factory is expected to produce tens of millions of chips daily to be used in vehicles, smartphones, data centers and everyday electronics, according to TI. The factory is expected ot have a profound impact on the region. When the facility is complete, the campus is expected to be the biggest electronics production facility in Texas and among the largest manufacturing facilities in the country.
Read more at WFAA (Texas)
Merriam-Webster Names 'Slop' As Its 2025 Word Of The Year
After yet another year of high-profile news stories and internet trends, Merriam-Webster has chosen one word to sum up 2025: “slop.” The dictionary publisher defined it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence” and said it reflected the “absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books” that have invaded people's social media feeds this year. “All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again,” the company said.
Other words and phrases that stood out for Merriam-Webster's editors were: “gerrymander,” “touch grass,” “performative,” “tariff,” “six seven” and “conclave.” The company also gave a shoutout to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, an alternative name for Webster Lake in Massachusetts, which began appearing in the most-searched list of words on merriam-webster.com thanks to its appearance in the online gaming world Roblox.
Read more at NBC
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