WASHINGTON—U.S. machine tool sales totaled $430 million in May, up 13.6 percent from April but down 7.6 percent compared with sales in May 2012. With a year-to-date total of $2.08 billion, 2013 is down 6.9 percent compared with 2012.

DETROIT—GM and Honda are collaborating to develop fuel cells and hydrogen storage technologies.

DALLAS—Tesla is considering building a factory in Texas to assemble electric pickup trucks.

SOREL-TRACY, Canada—Alstom has started building bogies for subway cars at a new assembly plant here.

DEARBORN, MI—Ford is introducing a new technology that promises to decrease costs and delivery time for manufacturing sheet metal parts. Under the process, a piece of sheet metal is clamped around its edges and formed into a 3D shape by two stylus-type tools working together on opposite sides of the sheet.

CHICAGO—Boeing is urging its suppliers to provide more visibility into their inner workings and to lower costs by 15 percent.

IOWA CITY, IA—Automation enables the Oral-B assembly plant here to produce 1 million toothbrushes daily.

SHELBY, NC—Schletter, a manufacturer of solar panel mounting systems, has opened a new headquarters and assembly plant here.

WASHINGTON—Orders to American factories rose 2.1 percent in May, helped by a third straight month of stronger business investment. The gains suggest that manufacturing may be picking up after a weak start to the year.

SAITAMA, Japan—People and humanoid robots are working side by side on an assembly line at an assembly plant here that makes money-handling machines.