DETROIT—General Motors plans to hire more than 1,200 hourly and salary workers as part of a second shift the company is adding at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant.

DETROIT—Nearly three weeks after workers soundly rejected a tentative agreement, voting at several Fiat Chrysler plants showed strong support Wednesday for a new contract that would enable entry-level hires to gain wage parity with veteran employees.

PRETORIA, South Africa—BMW’s assembly plant here is getting some of its power from cow manure. The company has agreed to a 10-year deal to buy as much as 4.4 megawatts of electricity from a biogas power station about 80 kilometers from the assembly plant. Surrounded by land where approximately 30,000 cattle graze, the power station runs off gas emitted by a fetid mixture of dung and organic waste.

GREENVILLE, SC—Auto parts supplier Magna International will spend more than $50 million to build a new assembly plant here, adding 153 jobs.

DETROIT—The UAW will formally explore whether it should renegotiate a proposed contract with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles before making the bolder decision to move on to General Motors or Ford to reach a deal. Last week, UAW members rejected a tentative agreement reached in September.

KANSAS CITY, MO—Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers avoided a strike at the automaker’s assembly plant here, after coming to a tentative agreement on a local labor contract Oct. 2.

HAGERSTOWN, MD—Volvo Group North America has installed 5,000 solar panels at its power train assembly plant here. The company erected a canopy of solar panels above its parking lot to generate approximately 1.3 megawatts of electricity, enough power for 200 homes.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Researchers at MIT have developed a 3D-printed robotic hand made out of silicone rubber that can lift and handle objects as delicate as an egg and as thin as a compact disc.

LEWES, DE—The worldwide market for welding robots is expected to grow 6.09 percent annually through 2019, according to a new forecast from Market Research Reports Inc.

CHICAGO—Boeing will open a plant in China in partnership with state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China. The new factory will focus on painting and assembling twin-engine 737 aircraft manufactured in the US. Chinese firms also agreed to buy 300 Boeing jets, in deals worth about $38 billion.