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Trade Wars
Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to Architects of Metal-Organic Frameworks
Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for the development of molecular building blocks with spaces large enough that gases and other chemicals can flow through them. The cavities on the inside are “almost like rooms in a hotel, so that guest molecules can enter and also exit again from the same material,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said during the announcement of the award. The laureates’ discoveries, he added, pave the way for the creation of materials that can separate toxic chemicals from wastewater or harvest water molecules in a desert.
Richard Robson is a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, where he has taught since 1966. Susumu Kitagwa received his Ph.D. in 1979 from Kyoto University in Japan, where he now teaches. Omar M. Yaghi received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Yaghi was born to Palestinian refugees who settled in Jordan, and moved to New York for college, first at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy. He switched to the State University of New York at Albany in 1983.
Read more at the NYT
Tax Credits Are Gone But Cheaper EVs Are Coming
Sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. surged in the third quarter as buyers rushed to take advantage of the $7,500 federal tax credit for new EVs that phased out on Sept. 30. That pushed the segment to a best-ever 10.5% market share during the three-month period, according to media reports. And companies including Tesla, General Motors, Ford and Hyundai all posted big spikes in demand for their battery-powered models. But there’s also concern the quarterly spike was a one-off event and that sales in the fourth quarter and beyond could taper off sharply.
but there are also indications that automakers are compensating by rolling out lower-priced models and keeping lease deals affordable. An even more helpful move could be Hyundai’s decision to slash prices for its Georgia-built Ioniq 5 by as much as $9,800, setting the base price for the electric hatchback at just $35,000 (slightly above the South Korean brand’s Kona EV, at about $33,000). Nissan is rolling out a restyled version of its Leaf with a starting price just below $30,000 that offers 300 miles of range per charge. GM is also preparing to sell a revamped version of its battery-powered Chevrolet Bolt in early 2026 that’s expected to have a base price below $30,000. The company’s EV sales surge this quarter was led by its electric Equinox compact crossover, which starts at about $35,000, in line with what similarly sized gasoline-powered models sell for. Add in Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, starting at $42,490, and Kia’s EV6 crossover, priced from $43,000, and U.S. consumers have a growing number of options that are all less expensive than the current average new vehicle price of just over $49,000.
Read more at Forbes
Boeing Set To Win Conditional EU Okay For $4.7 Billion Spirit Deal, Sources Say
Boeing is set to gain EU antitrust approval for its $4.7 billion acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems with remedies to address EU concerns expected to include sales of some of the latter's businesses, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.Boeing announced the deal in July last year, aiming to streamline its operations and improve quality control, years after spinning off the key airline supplier.
Boeing's remedies to address EU competition worries are expected to be those the companies announced at the time of the acquisition agreement, the people said. These are the sale of Spirit's loss-making Europe-focused activities to Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab and the divestment of Spirit's operations in Prestwick, Scotland, and in Subang, Malaysia, that support Airbus programmes, as well as those in Belfast that do not support Airbus programmes. The European Commission, which acts as the EU's competition enforcer, is scheduled to make a decision by October 14.
Read more at Reuters
Amkor Expands Arizona Semiconductor Campus Investment To $7B
Amkor Technology has broken ground on a new semiconductor packaging and testing campus in Peoria, Arizona, the company announced Monday. Construction is expected to be finished in mid-2027, and production is slated to begin in early 2028. The company expanded its total investment to $7 billion across two phases. The Arizona campus will include packaging and testing facilities along with 750,000 square feet of cleanroom space.
Amkor will collaborate with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to supply chips to customers such as Apple and Nvidia. Its campus will complement TSMC’s nearby wafer fabrication site. The testing and packaging campus, combined with TSMC’s fabs, create “an end-to-end silicon supply chain in America,” Apple COO Sabih Khan said in a statement. TSMC produces Apple silicon, and Amkor’s new facilities will package and test the chips, Khan said.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
Ho Hos and Twinkies - JM Smucker To Spend Over $120M On Hostess Plant Expansion
J.M. Smucker plans to spend $120 million to expand production at its Hostess manufacturing plant in Columbus, Georgia. The investment will go toward the construction of a new building, renovation of certain areas of the facility and new equipment, according to Pace Halter, chairman of Choose Columbus, the city’s economic development group. Construction to support the expanded capacity has begun and is expected to be completed by early 2027. The food giant said the investment will create at least 48 new jobs.
Hostess, which makes Twinkies, Donettes and Ho Hos, was purchased by Smucker two years ago for $5.6 billion to help build the jam maker’s presence in indulgent snacking and add more consumer occasions focused on convenience. But since then, inflation, economic uncertainty and the growing use of appetite-suppressing GLP-1 drugs have weighed on the brand. Barron’s noted that Smucker has taken nearly $2 billion in write-downs related to its Hostess investment. Similar to other food and beverage companies, Smucker has been opening, expanding and closing facilities to meet demand for its products and improve the efficiency of its supply chain.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
SoftBank to Buy ABB's Robot Business For $5.4 Billion In Push To Merge AI And Robotics
SoftBank Group has agreed to buy the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB in a $5.4 billion deal, as the Japanese investor forges ahead with a strategy to fuse robotics and artificial intelligence. The acquisition, announced on Wednesday, is the latest by founder and CEO Masayoshi Son to establish Softbank as a core player in the development of artificial intelligence. ABB announced to shareholders in April its decision to spin off robotics but decided to sell instead because the SoftBank deal provided money immediately, ABB CEO Morten Wierod told Reuters.
ABB's robotics division, which employs 7,000 people, generated sales of $2.3 billion last year, equivalent to 7% of ABB's total revenues. But the company saw limited crossover with the rest of its business, which focuses primarily on electrification and automation. SoftBank pushed into humanoid robotics a decade ago with its Pepper robot but later scaled back its ambitions. Its recent investments in the sector include Berkshire Grey and AutoStore, and it also led a $40 billion funding round in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and in March bought chip design company Ampere for $6.5 billion. "SoftBank's next frontier is Physical AI," Son said in a statement.
Read more at Reuters
Automakers to take $30B tariff hit to profits: Moody's
Tariff deals between the White House and foreign governments are trickling in, but the net effect of President Trump’s various trade wars are walloping the bottom lines of major automakers. “Global carmakers, explicitly or implicitly, indicated US tariffs will cut their [2025] operating profitability by more than $30 billion,” Moody’s Ratings said in a report. “Though the companies' disclosure parameters differed, the guidance points to a tariff impact equivalent to more than one-fifth of the operating profit the same companies generated in 2024.”
The guidance on tariff impact incorporates the framework trade agreement between the EU and US, as well as the trade agreement with Japan. While this does provide some certainty, Moody’s noted, deals between the US, Mexico, and Canada, where negotiations are stalled, are uncertain at best.
Read more at Yahoo Finance
Nearly All Automakers Report Q3 Sales Gains
Nearly every major automaker reported sales increases in the third quarter compared to the same period a year ago. General Motors and Ford reported strong electric vehicle sales, with GM crediting a rush of buyers taking advantage of an expiring federal tax credit for EV purchases. The tax credit expired Sept. 30. Here are some highlights.
- Audi of America sales flat in Q3 - Audi of America sold 46,758 vehicles in Q3, almost unchanged year over year.
- BMW sales increase by more than 8% - BMW of North America sold 275,385 vehicles in Q3, an 8.5% year-over-year increase.
- Nissan U.S. quarterly sales up more than 5% - Nissan Motor Co. reported U.S. sales of 223,377 units in Q3, up 5.3% year over year.
- Stellantis sales up 6% - Stellantis reported U.S. sales of 324,825 units in Q3, a 6% year-over-year increase.
- Toyota quarterly sales up nearly 16% - Toyota Motor North America sold 629,137 units in Q3, up 15.9% year over year.
- Volkswagen of America sales fall 6% - Volkswagen of America sold 87,705 vehicles in Q3, down 6% year over year.
Read more at Ward’s Auto
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