LOUISVILLE, KY—Ford Motor Co.’s assembly plant here has been shut down this week because of difficulties getting parts needed to make its vehicles, putting about 3,900 hourly workers temporarily out of work.

ELIZABETHTOWN, KY—Automotive supplier Metalsa is adding 300 new jobs at its assembly plant here to meet increased demand for the company’s signature product: vehicle frames for light- and heavy-weight trucks.

CALHOUN, GA—TEKLAS, a Turkish manufacturing company and supplier of parts for electric vehicles, is investing $6.5 million to open its first North American assembly plant and headquarters here.

INDIANAPOLIS—Cook Medical Group will invest $7 million to build a 40,000-square-foot assembly plant here, creating 100 jobs.

LIBERTY Hill, TX—Volcon, a startup focused on off-road electric vehicles, is planning a new manufacturing plant and headquarters here.

CUPERTINO, CA—Apple has placed a second major supplier in Asia on probation after finding that the company delayed payments to workers—a breach that spurred vandalism at a factory in India in December.

VITORIA, Spain—A disgruntled former employee of a Mercedes-Benz plant here reportedly stole a Caterpillar front-end loader from a construction site on New Year's Eve, drove it to the plant and rammed through the property gate before destroying nearly 70 vehicles.

OOSTBURG, WI—Automated packaging equipment manufacturer Viking Masek is significantly expanding the production capacity of its U.S. headquarters here.

TOKYO—Japan aims to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles in the next 15 years, the government said in late December, and reach net zero carbon emissions and generate nearly $2 trillion a year in green growth by 2050.

CUPERTINO, CA–Apple Inc. says it is moving forward with self-driving-car technology and targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include breakthrough battery technology.