Manufacturing

Once a symbol of a prosperous and manufacturing-rich city, Detroit's Packard plant has been left to decay for decades. On Wednesday, the elements took their toll and the Packard plant's skyway bridge collapsed onto the city street. Thankfully, no one was injured in the collapse, according to...

The process of building cars is becoming more complicated and yet easier at the same time. More complex processes and materials are being introduced, but we also have robots to lend a helping hand throughout the manufacturing process. Audi has figured out a way to use these robots to improve its...

Polestar, formerly Volvo's in-house tuner, will forge ahead as a standalone brand within Volvo Cars Group. On Monday, the brand announced it broke ground on its first manufacturing facility in Chengdu, China. It will be the assembly plant for all future Polestar models. Volvo already has a plant in...

For the first time ever, the Detroit Big Three will likely cede the North American production crown this year. A new automotive manufacturing forecast says General Motors, Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles will build fewer cars in North America than foreign automakers (plus Tesla) on the...

General Motors will immediately cease operations in the country of Venezuela after the U.S. automaker announced authorities there illegally seized its manufacturing plant and industrial hub. The hub, situated in Valencia, employs 2,678 workers. “Yesterday, GMV’s (General Motors...

Volvo concedes that to be a success in North America it will need a local manufacturing base. Having witnessed the success of premium European marques such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz building cars in the U.S., as well as Volkswagen and soon Audi ramping up their manufacturing bases in North America...

Volkswagen's new modular transverse matrix platform will allow it to build products as diverse as Polo hatchbacks and Passat sedans from a single platform.

Luxury manufacturer Audi is on a roll in terms of hiring and upgrading its infrastructure, which it sees as necessary for continued growth.

As long as your car starts, stops and does so without going wrong too frequently, most people aren't really bothered how it all came together. Even so, it's a facinating process to observe and there's now a video showing how much effort actually goes into making the new BMW 1-Series compact, from...

It may not be fast and it may not even be pretty, but the Urbee car is important for other reasons. The potential for 166 mpg is clearly a number to raise eyebrows. Using a combination of electric motors and a small, single cylinder, 8 horsepower engine running on ethanol, high economy was never...

One minute it's freezing cold, the next you're battling with a hurricane, and then finally the sun comes out for tropical temperatures. No, it's not some futuristic vision of a world in the grips of rapid climate change, it's actually the conditions available in the new wind tunnels used by...

BMW is aiming to become of the first manufacturers to begin high-volume production of carbon fiber car parts. The first part-carbon cars could be seen as soon as 2013. The cost and production time of carbon fiber has been reduced considerably over the last few years. The all-carbon McLaren MP4-12C...

You might not think of the voice inside your sat-nav system or the sound of your blinkers as being particularly sonorous, but then you're probably not working with BMW to turn those sounds and more into a few minutes of music as the backdrop to production of the 2012 BMW 1-Series. The man behind...

Small cars are becoming big business. The smart fortwo, Scion iQ, Gordon Murray's upcoming T.25, the Renault Twizy... more and more carmakers are developing tiny vehicles to provide our city transportation of the future. General Motors has jumped on the bandwagon too. GM showed the cleverly named...

Safety isn't a glamorous subject but it's nice to know that when you put yourself and your family into a car you'll all be safe. Not just on the road, but sitting there and breathing normally, too. That's why manufacturers such as Ford are making the effort to put their cars through the rigorous...

3D printing isn't one of those technologies that we might see, some indeterminate time in the future. It's one of those technologies that we can already see, and inspect, and touch. 3D printing, also known as Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) isn't the technology of the future - it's a technology...

Imagine the scenario. You go to your local car dealership for a replacement part. A bracket has sheared in your engine bay and components are rattling against each other making every journey a nightmare. Only trouble is, a replacement part won't be in stock for another few weeks. "Not to worry Sir...

BMW outlined the U.S. specs of its 2011 X3 crossover earlier this month, and at the 2010 Paris auto show, it displayed the new South Carolina-built SUV for the first time in public. The new creases and folds do good things for the X3's sheetmetal. The ute loses some of the slab-sided appearance of...