CHATTANOOGA, TN—Volkswagen will invest $800 million to make a new electric vehicle (EV) at its assembly plant here.

DETROIT—Ford and Volkswagen plan to build commercial vans and medium-sized pickup trucks together as early as 2022 as part of a new partnership.

GAITHERSBURG, MD—Created by a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an advanced filtering material can extract the key ingredient in the most common form of plastic from a mixture of other chemicals while consuming far less energy than usual.

DETROIT—Ford is recalling more than 953,000 vehicles worldwide to replace Takata passenger air bag inflators that can explode and hurl shrapnel. The move includes more than 782,000 vehicles in the United States, and is part of the largest series of recalls in U.S. history.

MOBILE, AL—Airbus has firmed up orders for 120 A220 aircraft, including 60 for JetBlue and 60 for JetBlue founder David Neeleman's new airline called Moxy. Airbus will produce the planes at a new plant here, with construction beginning this month.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates—Strata Manufacturing has entered into an agreement with UAE-based DGWorld (Digi Robotics Technologies) to implement a robotics system in its manufacturing processes, the company announced on Sunday. The agreement will enable Strata, a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, to automate the company’s operations assembly unit, including drilling, reaming and countersinking of aircraft components.

WASHINGTON—The White House last Friday laid out objectives for trade talks with Japan, setting the clock for them to begin as early as Jan. 20, as the administration seeks to slash the United States' $69 billion trade deficit with the world's third-biggest economy. According to the document, the United States is aiming to secure duty-free market access for American industrial products and reduce or eliminate tariffs for U.S. agricultural goods.

SPRINGFIELD, MA—The first pair of the 404 next-generation rail vehicles built in the U.S. factory of Chinese rail car manufacturer CRRC here will soon be delivered to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for further tests before entering into service by the city of Boston in the coming months. The cars are set to replace the decades-old ones running on Boston's Orange Line.

LAS VEGAS—BKT USA Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of India-based Balkrishna Industries Ltd., announced during the Specialty Equipment Market Association Show here that the off-highway tire specialist company is planning to soon build a U.S. tire plant. The $100 million factory will be BKT's first outside of India and fifth tire plant overall.

BOCA CHICA, TX—Last Saturday SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed that construction of a prototype for a Mars spaceship, called Starship, is now underway, and that the first round of its experimental launches may be completed by early spring.