Reuters
General Motors Co. expects to spend more on developing and selling electric vehicles (EVs) than gasoline-powered cars over the next five years, Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Tuesday. Bara was responding to a question from an analyst on the No. 1 U.S. automaker’s earnings conference call when she said she believed EVs would see more of the research and development and capital spending dollars in that time period.

KISSsoft press release
The increasing number of electric vehicles is already having an impact on the design of transmissions. Although the number of gears in e-mobility applications is typically lower than in conventional passenger cars, the requirements for low-noise and low-vibration transmissions as well as high power density and transmission efficiency are very high. For the engineer, this means a whole series of new challenges. KISSsoft offers various calculation modules for the design and optimization of vehicle transmissions. With the entire gearbox kinematics can be set-up quickly and easily along with a strength evaluation and overall system.

Institute for Supply Management via PR Newswire
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in October, and the overall economy grew for the 126th consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM report.

IHS Markit Press Release via Business Wire
October data signaled a modest improvement in business conditions across the Canadian manufacturing sector, driven a sustained rebound in output and new business levels.

Medical Design and Outsourcing
As competition and regulation in medical device manufacturing increase, speed and accuracy take on even more importance. Paperless operations streamline the approach by reducing errors and speeding up delivery

Thomas Net
Robots can manipulate, grasp or pick up objects so long as they are uniform, but become confused by the tiniest changes in position, shape or size. Hard-coding a robot’s movements for every possible scenario is time-consuming, expensive, and will not work unless the robot’s environment is precise and uniform or when objects are deformable (such as fabric).

Gear Technology
After opening its Paris, Ark., manufacturing plant in 1963, Cloyes Gear and Products announced it has successfully regained ownership of the manufacturing operation from American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM). AAM held ownership of the plant following its 2017 acquisition of Metaldyne Performance Group Inc. (MPG), which included Cloyes. In April 2018, Hidden Harbor Capital Partners, an operationally focused private equity firm specializing in control investments in lower middle market companies, acquired Cloyes and immediately started the process of purchasing the Paris plant to continue Cloyes’ nearly 100-year-old manufacturing history in the United States.

Industry Week
Recovering from a data breach is a time-consuming, expensive and often embarrassing endeavor. And as companies are discovering, data breaches are no longer limited to information technology (IT). The ongoing convergence of IT and operational technology (OT) networks is making OT increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. 

Industry Week
Recovering from a data breach is a time-consuming, expensive and often embarrassing endeavor. And as companies are discovering, data breaches are no longer limited to information technology. The ongoing convergence of IT and operational technology (OT) networks is making OT increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. 

Industry Week
True driverless cars have arrived from Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet Inc., but the company’s CEO says robot ride hailing may not be the first form of automotive autonomy to take off commercially. Autonomous vehicles may take hold first in more mundane driverless delivery trucks that travel easily repeatable routes.

Wired
The Defense Innovation Board, with members from Google, Microsoft and Facebook, praises the power of military AI but warns of unintended harms or conflict.

Machine Design
To help engineers in large and small companies analyze Big Data, computer engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have released broad specifications on how to build useful tools for tackling that task. 

3D Printing Industry
Award winning 3D printer manufacturer Desktop Metal has announced the launch of Fiber, a new continuous fiber desktop 3D printer integrated with automated fiber placement (AFP) technology.

New Atlas
Earlier this year, Fisker Inc. announced plans to “reinvent the SUV” with a 300-mile electric utility vehicle priced at a reasonable $40,000, promising more details to follow before year's end. Henrik Fisker's latest venture makes good on its promise, revealing that the “world's most sustainable vehicle,” an e-SUV by the name of Ocean, will make a proper debut in about two months as a near-production prototype. The new model will be offered through an app-based flex-leasing program.

Gear Technology
Hy-Tech Engineered Solutions announced the acquisition of Blaz-Man Gear and Gear Products & Manufacturing; both Chicago based companies specializing in the manufacture and distribution of custom gears and power transmission gear products. The addition will triple Hy-Tech’s capacity in gear production, as well as bring new expertise to expand into more complex spiral and straight bevel gear design and manufacture.

Machine Design
The next wave of innovation in the Industrial Internet of Things may not come directly from a major name in the industry space. The next big thing may actually be a small thing from the dozens of start-up software and solutions companies that are all aiming at delivering on IIoT’s promise of a digital factory.