USA and Canada

DTE Energy has announced the sites for three wind farms in Michigan’s Thumb, a $225 million investment towards the expansion of its renewable energy resources.

The Minden, Sigel and McKinley wind farms – which together will generate approximately 110 MW of electricity – will be sited on nearly 15,000 acres in Bloomfield, Sigel and McKinley townships in Huron County, and Minden and Delaware townships in Sanilac County.

General Motors today announced a $100 million investment in tooling and equipment to make automotive components at its GM Components Holdings Rochester Operations plant in New York state.

"This investment in our manufacturing operations will enable us to produce a new generation of fuel-efficient small block car and truck engines," said Cathy Clegg, GM vice president of Labor Relations.

Toyota has announced plans to reduce production in its North American plants as a result of part shortages from Japan, where production has been hit by the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami.

The company said production would be suspended at its North American vehicle plants on April 15, 18, 21 and 25 (although the Georgetown, Kentucky plant will continue to assemble vehicles on April 21st). Most of the company’s North American engine and component plants will follow the same schedule.

As part of a $600 million investment, GE is planning to build the largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the United States, after a breakthrough in technology.

Yesterday, GE announced that its CdTe (cadmium telluride) thin film solar panel has achieved 12.8 percent efficiency, as measured by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)—the highest-ever reported efficiency for a thin film solar panel. A one-percent increase in panel efficiency equals around a 10 percent decrease in system cost.

Microsoft and Toyota have announced a $12 million investment in Toyota Media Services, a strategic partnership to make the automobile the ultimate mobile device.

The partnership intends to use Microsoft’s “cloud computing” Windows Azure platform to develop next-generation telematics services, fusing telecommunications and information technologies in vehicles for GPS systems, energy management and other multimedia technologies.

Toyota’s electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles will be equipped with the new services in 2012, with worldwide roll-out by 2015.

Sales of Toyota’s famous Prius hybrids have hit the one million mark in the United States, the car maker announced today.

The Prius has been the biggest-selling hybrid in the US since it was first launched 11 years ago.

Worldwide Prius sales topped two million in October last year; with Toyota hybrid sales globally hitting three million last month.

US chip-maker Texas Instruments (TI) has announced an agreement to acquire rival National Semiconductor, which will bring together two industry leaders in analog semiconductors.

The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction, under which TI will pay $25 per share for each National share.

Automobile sales in the United States had their best month for some time in March, with all major manufacturers recording growth in sales, apart from Toyota.

Chrysler sold 121,730 cars and light trucks during the month, a rise of 31 percent over the same month last year, while Nissan sales rose 26.9 percent from 98,468 last year to 121,141—making March an all-time record month for Nissan North America.

Lockheed Martin is to design and deliver an upgraded anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training target under a $5.4 million contract from the US Navy.

Known as EMATTs (short for MK39 Expendable Mobile Anti-submarine Warfare Training Targets) the targets are used by air and surface crews for unrestricted, open-ocean and on-range anti-submarine warfare training.

Designed to simulate the movements and sounds of diesel submarines, EMATTs help crews maintain their anti-submarine combat skills.

The World Trade Organization has ruled that Boeing did receive subsidies “inconsistent” with the Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Agreement, but not nearly as much as had been claimed by Europe on behalf of Airbus.

European countries had complained that Airbus had suffered because of payments and/or incentives to Boeing amounting to $19.1 billion between 1989 and 2006.