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Trade Wars
Tesla Unveils New Roadster And Yes, It Can Actually Fly
Tesla’s new Roadster, unveiled late on Thursday in McGregor, Texas, is an electric supercar boasting numbers that seem impossible. Far more fascinating than the numbers was a demo in which the car was driven upside down on a ramp and then, using boosters on the bottom and the sides, flips itself over mid-air and gently lowers itself to the ground. The car went from 0-60mph in an apparent 0.81 seconds, which would make it a lot faster than anything else out there. For comparison, Rimac Nevera R, the quickest production car out there, does a 0-60mph in 1.66 seconds; a Formula 1 car can do it in 1.6 seconds.
The car, as it was explained, has suction fans on the bottom allowing it to stick itself to a surface with an incredible amount of force, so it can actually remain upside down for a while. This is good for stunts, but it will also be good for speedy driving, as the extra downforce makes the car extra nimble in turns. The Roadster also has a retractable rear wing that can dynamically adjust downforce, further helping with the car's behaviour at high speeds. As for the rocketry that propels the Roadster upwards, that's "borrowed" from SpaceX, and it consists of ten air nozzles that use compressed air from a special tank to push the car up or sideways. The important part: No special fuel is needed; it's all just air, and the tank can be refueled when needed.
Read more and watch and Mashable
Private Sector Jobs Increased The Hudson Valley In September, Manfuacturing Up 500
Private sector jobs in the Hudson Valley rose by 10,400 or 1.2 percent, to 854,900 over the year in September 2026. The greatest gains were in private education and health services (+4,600), professional and business services (+1,700), leisure and hospitality (+1,400), trade, transportation and utilities (+1,300), other services (+600), financial activities (+500), manufacturing (+500) and mining, logging and construction (+200). Losses occurred in information (-400).
Statewide private sector employment fell by 24,400 to 8,428,400 in September, a .3% drop from August. Manufacturing gained 700 workers, pushing total employment in the sector back about 400,000 again after dipping below that threshold in August. Total Manfuacturing employment statewide stands at 400,100.
Read the Labor Marker Profile
Applied Materials Opens $5B Semiconductor Innovation Center
Applied Materials, an equipment, services and software supplier for chipmakers, has opened its multibillion-dollar Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization Center to collaborate with industry on next-generation technologies. Leading chipmakers, systems companies, equipment partners and research universities will work at the center to develop advanced chipmaking processes, as well as to move technologies from early-stage research to high-volume manufacturing faster, Applied Materials said. The 600,000-square-foot facility is located at the company’s campus in Sunnyvale, California, and has near four acres of advanced cleanroom space. Applied Materials said it expects capital spending to reach $5 billion as new customer projects begin.
The EPIC Center will “reinvent” the standard research and development model in the semiconductor industry. The standard model typically involves handing off foundational materials research, equipment and process development, and process integration and pilot production from one siloed environment to the next. “The EPIC Center is designed to remove these handoffs, putting the people who invent the materials, build the equipment, and make the chips together in a state-of-the-art facility purpose-built for commercialization,” the company said. “The technologies the AI era demands are too complex and too consequential for any one company to invent alone.”
Read more at Futurum
Penske Automotive Goes Private At $16.3B Valuation
Penske Automotive Group agreed to go private, accepting a previously disclosed offer, in which parent company Penske Corp. and long-term minority shareholder Mitsui & Co. offered to purchase the 27.8% of Penske Automotive Group they didn’t already own, for a total of $3.9 billion in cash. Mitsui and the other members of the investor group will receive $212.00 per share in cash, a premium of approximately 8.8% over the closing price of the company’s common stock on October 14. It gives Penske Automotive Group an enterprise value of approximately $16.3 billion.
Closing is expected to be in the first quarter of 2027, pending shareholder and regulatory approval, according to the release. As of June 30, 2026, Penske Automotive Group operated 362 retail automotive franchised dealerships, of which 146 are located in the U.S., and 216 are located outside the country, mostly in the U.K., according to the chain’s second-quarter report. Before the latest transaction, Penske Corp. Chairman Roger Penske and Penske Automotive Holdings Corp. already owned approximately 52% of the dealership group. Penske Automotive is based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
Read more at Ward’s Auto
Alcoa Plans To Sell Part Of Its Massena East Site For $315M, On Track for South32 Asset Purchase
Aluminum producer Alcoa Corp. said it plans to sell some of its Massena East industrial site in New York for up to $315 million as part of a strategy to offload dormant assets for cash. Alcoa has reached a definitive agreement with a buyer and expects to receive the first $50 million to $65 million when the deal closes within the next six months, William Oplinger, president and CEO, said on an earnings call Thursday. The remaining cash is expected before the end of the decade, but the agreement allows up to seven years for commissioning.
Alcoa is also on track to close its acquisition of South32’s bauxite, alumina and aluminum assets in Australia, Brazil and South Africa for $4.1 billion during the first half of 2027. South32 shareholders on Thursday approved the sale of the assets, known as AliGroup. Additionally, Alcoa completed $2.6 billion in debt financing last month to put towards the $3.1 billion cash portion of the deal. It first announced the acquisition in July.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
Applied Materials
to invent alone.”
Read more at Futurum
Kikkoman Opens $560 Million Soy Sauce Manufacturing Facility In Wisconsin
Kikkoman’s U.S. manufacturing subsidiary has opened a new soy sauce manufacturing facility, its third in the U.S., in Jefferson, Wis. The company, which produces soy sauce and soy sauce-related seasonings, plans to invest approximately $560 million over 10 years. The Jefferson plant occupies approximately 100 acres and has about 240,000 square feet of total floor space. Construction on the steel frame structure began in April 2024. Soy sauce brewing operations started in May 2026, with shipments scheduled to begin in October 2026.
The facility will produce soy sauce and related seasonings to help meet demand in North America and provide a wider range of products to customers, according to an October press release. The new construction is also part of Kikkoman’s Global Vision 2030 expansion initiative.
Read more at Plant Services
US Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Test Custom Exhaust For Negative Triangularity Plasma
The DIII-D National Fusion Facility in California is teaming up with Japanese engineering firm Kyoto Fusioneering. Together, they will build and test a specialised exhaust system designed to handle the ferocious heat produced inside a fusion reactor. The system will be installed directly into DIII-D’s tokamak, a testbed device funded by the US Department of Energy. Nuclear fusion generates clean power by fusing light atoms together, the same process that fuels the sun. Most research takes place inside donut-shaped magnetic chambers known as tokamaks. However, containing matter heated to over 100 million degrees Celsius poses a serious risk to machine walls.
“Negative triangularity, or plasma in a reverse ‘D’ shape, is a potentially transformative operational approach for tokamaks, donut-shaped fusion devices that contain plasma with magnetic fields,” explained Kyoto Fusioneering. This alternative geometry offers an elegant physical advantage. It dampens unstable heat bursts and radiates excess thermal energy away smoothly before it can strike reactor walls. Yet despite its promise, nobody has tested the configuration with an industrial-grade exhaust system capable of handling its unique particle flows.
Read more at Interesting Engineering
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