Mercedes plans electric SUVs at Alabama plant
Mercedes-Benz says it will spend $1 billion to expand its Alabama facilities and start production of a new line of fully electric SUVs.
The company plans to build a new battery plant near its existing assembly plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Construction of the 1 million square-foot battery plant will begin next year.
Mercedes said the project will create around 600 new jobs. The company currently employs 3,700 people in Alabama.
The Tuscaloosa assembly plant will start production of the EQ line of electric SUVs around 2020. Mercedes is aiming at Tesla with the EQ, which will also have advanced semi-autonomous driving features.
Mercedes made the announcement Thursday as it celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Tuscaloosa plant. The plant currently makes the GLE and GLS SUVs for the U.S. and global markets.
Facebook to release Russia ads to Congress
Facebook will provide the contents of 3,000 ads bought by a Russian agency to Congress, and is also taking steps to make political advertising more transparent on its network.
Investigators have sought the Russian ads for their probes into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Facebook’s transparency moves are also important; currently, there’s no way for outsiders to track political ads or for recipients to tell who is sponsoring such messages.
Allstate says losses total $593 million
Allstate expects insurance losses of about $593 million in August after Hurricane Harvey left a path of destruction along the Gulf Coast.
The initial accounting Thursday follows warnings from other insurers that are tallying the damages from a hurricane season that is nowhere near being over.
Google buys HTC for $1.1 billion
Google is biting off a big piece of device manufacturer HTC for $1.1 billion to expand its efforts to build phones, speakers and other gadgets equipped with its arsenal of digital services.
The deal announced Thursday underscores how serious Google is becoming about designing its own family of devices to compete against Apple and Amazon in a high-stakes battle to become the technological hub of people’s lives.