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Pfizer said it has restarted the majority of production lines at its drug manufacturing plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, more than two months after that facility was heavily damaged by a tornado. 
The company said it expects operations to fully resume by the end of the year.
Pfizer’s plant supplies nearly 8% of all sterile injectable medicines used in U.S. hospitals.

In this aerial image, damage is seen at a Pfizer pharmaceutical factory after a tornado hit the facility two days earlier, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, July 21, 2023.
Sean Rayford | Getty Images

Pfizer on Monday said it has restarted most production lines at a drug manufacturing plant that was severely damaged by a tornado two months ago, but added that some medicines from the facility may be in short supply until at least mid 2024.
In a statement, Pfizer stressed that it has only made the “first step toward full recovery” of its plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The company expects the facility’s operations to fully resume by the end of the year.

The Rocky Mount plant supplies nearly 8% of all sterile injectable medicines used in U.S. hospitals, including anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers. The facility also manufactures about 25% of the company’s drugs in that category. 
Pfizer in August warned hospitals that some medicines could see supply disruptions. 
One injection from the plant was in short supply as of late last month, according to a database from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. It was a type of sodium chloride injection, which is used to replenish water and salt lost as a result of certain conditions. 
Pfizer on Monday said it has restarted production of about 13 medicines, which were prioritized based on “patient need and inventory levels.” The company did not specify which drugs those are.
Pfizer said it is also continuing to monitor emergency request orders for certain medicines manufactured at the Rocky Mount plant. The company implemented the emergency ordering process in August to manage the distribution of 12 drugs “in high medical need.”
Pfizer’s announcement comes as the U.S. is already facing an unprecedented shortage of medicine, ranging from ADHD pills to pain medicine to injectable cancer therapies. Those shortages are driven by manufacturing quality control issues and surges in demand, among other factors. More

A new study said Merck’s widely used antiviral Covid pill can cause mutations in the virus that occasionally spread to other people.
But there is no evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, has produced more transmissible or severe variants of Covid, according to the study. 
The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic.

A worker holds a bottle of Merck & Co.’s molnupiravir antiviral medication in a warehouse in Shoham, Israel, on Jan. 18, 2022.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A new study released Monday said Merck’s widely used antiviral Covid pill can cause mutations in the virus that occasionally spread to other people, raising questions about whether the drug has the potential to accelerate Covid’s evolution. 
The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, molnupiravir, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic.

Molnupiravir works by causing mutations in Covid’s genetic information, which weakens or destroys the virus and reduces the amount of Covid in the body. However, the study published Monday in the scientific journal Nature found that Covid can sometimes survive treatment with molnupiravir, leading to mutated versions of the virus that have been found to spread to other patients. 
Researchers in the U.S. and U.K. specifically analyzed 15 million Covid genomes to see which mutations had occurred and when. They found that mutations increased in 2022 after molnupiravir was introduced in many countries. 
There is no evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, has produced more transmissible or severe variants of Covid, according to the study. 
But the findings are important for regulators who continue to assess the risks and benefits of molnupiravir, wrote Theo Sanderson, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Francis Crick Institute in London, in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
A spokesperson for Merck pushed back on the new study, claiming the researchers assumed that the mutations they analyzed were associated with molnupiravir-treated patients “without documented evidence of that transmission.”

“Instead, the authors rely on circumstantial associations between the region from which the sequence was identified and timeframe of sequence collection in countries where molnupiravir is available to draw their conclusion,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that genomes with the mutations were “uncommon and were associated with sporadic cases.” 
The company in February also disputed an earlier study by the same team of researchers, which suggested that molnupiravir is giving rise to new mutations of the virus in some patients. Based on data at the time, a spokesperson for Merck said it didn’t believe molnupiravir was likely to contribute to Covid mutations.
The new study comes as Covid once again gains a stronger foothold in the U.S., primarily driven by newer strains of the virus.
But the U.S. and other countries appear to be relying less on molnupiravir to fend off Covid this year: Sales of the drug dropped to around $200 million during Merck’s third quarter, down 83% from the more than $1 billion reported during the same period a year ago. 
Merck’s molnupiravir has long been controversial because of its ability to cause genetic mutations. 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved the drug for emergency use in late 2021. But the FDA recommends against using Lagevrio during pregnancy because non-clinical studies suggest that it may cause fetal harm.
Molnupiravir also isn’t authorized for use in patients under 18 because it may affect bone and cartilage growth. More

Sierra Space, the subsidiary of private aerospace contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation, is finalizing a raise of nearly $300 million, CNBC has learned.
The round values the space company at about $5 billion, according to two people familiar with the transaction.
The fresh funds come as Sierra Space focuses on getting its Dream Chaser spaceplane flying.

Artist’s rendering of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane in this undated handout obtained March 25, 2022.
Sierra Space | via Reuters

Sierra Space, the subsidiary of private aerospace contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation, is finalizing a raise of nearly $300 million, CNBC has learned.
The round values the space company at about $5 billion, according to two people familiar with the transaction, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal matters. Sierra Space expects to announce the raise as soon as this week, those people said.

Sierra Space’s equity round is being led by Japanese investors MUFG, Kanematsu and Tokio Marine, those people said, with significant participation from prior investors and insiders. Citigroup is advising on the deal.
Two years ago, Sierra Space raised $1.4 billion at a $4.5 billion valuation from investors including General Atlantic, BlackRock, AE Industrial Partners, Coatue and Moore Strategic Ventures.
Sierra Space did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the fundraise.

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The fresh funds come as Sierra Space focuses on getting its Dream Chaser spaceplane flying.
Dream Chaser has been in development for years with a goal to deliver cargo and eventually crew to low Earth orbit as a reusable vehicle. It resembles a miniaturized NASA Space Shuttle in appearance and is built to launch atop a traditional rocket and land on a runway like an airplane.

The first Dream Chaser launch was previously scheduled for late last year, but delays in the development of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket pushed back that timeline. Dream Chaser is planned to launch on ULA’s second Vulcan mission, with the first Vulcan launch targeting the fourth quarter of this year.
Sierra Space is also one of several companies working on a private space station. It plans to launch a “pathfinder” demonstration mission of its LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat in 2026. More

From Casa Cipriani and Zero Bond in New York, to the Aster and Heimat in Los Angeles and ZZ’s Club in Miami, new private clubs have redefined the old-world membership clubs and created safe spaces for today’s privacy-minded, highly mobile wealthy.
The club boom has created an arms race of amenities, with clubs vying to outdo each other with dining spaces, celebrity chefs, wellness spas, gyms, bars, pools, nightclubs, plush hotel suites and high-tech board rooms.

A battle between elite membership clubs is about to reach a whole new level, as Core Club’s new 60,000-square-foot megaclub prepares to open in Manhattan next month.
The new Core space, spread over four floors above Midtown, is the latest in a wave of elite membership clubs that have opened in major cities since the pandemic. From Casa Cipriani and Zero Bond in New York, to the Aster and Heimat in Los Angeles and ZZ’s Club in Miami, the clubs have redefined the old-world membership clubs and created safe spaces for today’s privacy-minded, highly mobile wealthy.

More than a dozen new clubs have opened or announced plans to open in Manhattan since 2020. Some, like Aman, are offshoots of hotel brands. Others, like ZZ’s and Casa Cipriani, leverage the cult-like fan base of their restaurants. Many are geographic expansions of existing hotspots, like LA’s famed San Vicente Bungalows opening in New York.

A rendering of a bar area at the Core Club, a private membership club in Midtown Manhattan.
Courtesy: Core Club

The club boom has created an arms race of amenities, with clubs vying to outdo each other with dining spaces, celebrity chefs, wellness spas, gyms, bars, pools, nightclubs, plush hotel suites and high-tech board rooms. ZZ’s Club, owned by Major Food Group and scheduled to open in Hudson Yards this fall, will boast multiple restaurants and a “culinary concierge” — a team of chefs able to whip up any dish that it’s members request.
“No one’s ever done this before,” said Jeff Zalaznick, managing partner for Major Food Group. “We’ve got so much talent in this kitchen. If you want your mother’s meatloaf in two days, we can make it. You want fried chicken, we can make it and probably make a great version.”
The price for access is soaring: the Aman Club in Manhattan, part of Aman New York’s new 83-suite hotel, charges $200,000 for membership along with $15,000 a year in annual dues. Core’s memberships range from $15,000 for an individual membership to $100,000 for a family membership, along with annual dues of $15,000 to $18,000 a year.

Arrows pointing outwards

With more clubs scheduled to open in the fourth quarter and beginning of next year, some members worry that New York and other big cities are becoming over-saturated with club offerings, especially if the economy plunges into recession.

Club owners and managers say they see no slowdown in demand, as the wealthy seek communities and private spaces where they can work, play, stay and network in a secure and exclusive space.
Industry watchers say the U.S. may be moving toward the London model of social clubs, where storied institutions like Annabel’s, 5 Hertford Street and White’s play a central role in the social and professional lives of the upper crust. Soho House, founded in London in 1995 by restauranteur Nick Jones, has expanded to become the global goliath of the private club world, with dozens of locations around the world and a publicly traded stock.

Casa Cipriani private membership club in New York.

Core Club’s founder and CEO, Jennie Enterprise, said that after the pandemic, the wealthy value privacy and a sense of community more than ever.
“I think the proliferation of private clubs is a reflection of an exceptional business model,” she said. “The annuity subscription-based business model in any industry is attractive. The activity in the space certainly reflects a desire for curated communities and experiences. And probably with a dynamic of social media, and a lack of privacy, I think that discretion and private communities are probably something that is more aligned with the culture of the moment.”

A rendering of a terrace at the Core Club, a private membership club in Midtown Manhattan.
Courtesy: Core Club

Club owners say members often join multiple clubs, since each has its own focus and atmosphere. Zero Bond, founded by nightclub impresario Scott Sartiano, has more of a nightclub vibe and has hosted Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson and Gigi Hadid. Aman has the hushed (some say eerily quiet) feel of a zen resort, while Casa Cipriani features the flashy, people-watching theater of Cipriani’s storied New York eateries.
Zalaznick said his affluent clientele is “spending more than ever” at ZZ’s Club in Miami and the company’s high-end restaurants, which bodes well for the forthcoming ZZ’s Club New York.
“The things that bring people back are great food, great service, great experiences, great connections and the staff’s ability to cater to people’s needs or desires,” he said. “That’s our focus, and that’s what will give us longevity in the club space.”
Core gave CNBC an exclusive first tour of its new club at 711 Fifth Avenue, scheduled to open in mid-October. The group opened its first space in 2005 at a nearby location on 55th street and became the most successful of the new breed of modern, business-oriented membership clubs. In need of more space and a fresh look, Core leased four floors on the top of the former Coca-Cola building and spent two years and tens of millions of dollars building the ideal layout.
Spanning the 15th through 18th floors, Core has over 6,000 square feet of outdoor terrace space with views of Central Park and the glass towers of Midtown.
The 15th floor houses 11 luxury hotel suites, which are between 500 and 750 square feet apiece. Priced at around $1,500 per night, the rooms will be available for guests or their family members. The same floor also houses a spa with treatment rooms and a salon.

A rendering of the Core Club, a private membership club in Midtown Manhattan.

The 16th floor is home to the gym, juice bar and the Dangene Institute, which features the latest in anti-aging skincare technology.
On the 17th floor, members will find a speakeasy-style lounge, which includes a stylish bar, blue velvet couches and a glass wine and champagne vault, called the wine library. Another set of glass doors leads to the culinary lab, a U-shaped table where celebrity chefs from around the world will serve up special dishes for members.

A rendering of the Core Club, a private membership club in Midtown Manhattan.
Courtesy: Core Club

The 18th floor houses the more formal dining area, which will serve mostly Mediterranean fare during the day and a more seasonal, varied menu at night. Core’s culinary program is headed by Chef Michele Brogioni, the celebrated former executive chef at Giorgio Armani. The club’s bread and pastries (including what is arguably New York’s best lemon cake) is overseen by head pastry chef Mauro Pompili.
The 18th floor also houses state-of-the art conference and board rooms, a screening room and a flexible events space and gallery that can be used for exhibits, parties and big gatherings.
Along with the Manhattan club, Core has new locations in Milan and San Francisco and has plans for several others in the coming years, Enterprise said.

A rendering of a dining area at the Core Club, a private membership club in Midtown Manhattan.
Courtesy: Core Club

Yet Core’s main draw, she said, isn’t the spaces or the amenities, but the community and well-spring of ideas. Core produces between 150 and 200 cultural events a year, from performances, exhibits and talks, to tastings, interviews and showcases.
“We’re ideas-led, not amenities-led,” Enterprise said. “Clearly we have beautiful, world-class amenities. But what defines us is the quality of our ideas. We curate a community of relentlessly curious and like-minded people from across the spectrum. So people can intersect with other people from media sports, fashion, finance, science, technology, design and beyond. Our commitment to cultural programming reflects a desire for our members to endlessly cultivate themselves.”
While Core never discloses the names of any of its members, some cited in past media reports include Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, fashion designer Tory Burch, Vornado CEO Steven Roth and Estee Lauder Executive Chairman William Lauder.
Since the new location is nearly twice the size as its prior outpost and can accommodate more members, Core is accepting and starting to review new applications.
“We are getting a lot of applications,” Enterprise said. “There is no single requirement. We look for interesting, curious people who will add to the community.”

A rendering of the Core Club, a private membership club in Midtown Manhattan. More

Dust-sheets cover the sets inside one soundproofed Hollywood studio, as placard-wielding writers and actors make as much noise as they can outside. The covers have been on since May, when America’s writers downed pens; in July the country’s actors joined them on strike. But on September 24th the writers said they had reached a tentative deal with the studios. The stage is now set for the actors to do the same, after which the dust-sheets can be whisked back off.Neither the Writers Guild of America (WGA) nor the studios have released the detailed terms of the three-year deal. On the face of it, the writers have won some concessions: bonuses for writers on shows that do well on streaming, a format whose success metrics have until now been opaque; minimum staffing levels for writers’ rooms; and terms governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which writers fear could soon churn out blockbuster scripts. The WGA says it is an “exceptional” deal. The studios are more circumspect. Until the agreement is approved by the WGA’s members, both sides have reason to say the deal is a good one for writers.The union’s governing councils are expected to nod through the deal as early as September 26th. Next it must be ratified by the WGA’s 11,500 rank-and-file, which will probably take several weeks. After 146 days without work, they are likely to vote “yes”. “If I lose my rent-controlled apartment, I’ll have to leave Los Angeles,” said one Hollywood worker marching in the heat outside Disney last week. The WGA may authorise its members to start working again while the ratification process is still going on, meaning that production of things like talk shows could resume imminently.Elsewhere, the cameras are not quite ready to roll. With actors still on strike, there will be no filming of scripted content (and even the talk shows will feel a bit thin, as striking stars are banned from appearing as guests). Their union, the Screen Actors Guild, is demanding a revenue-sharing deal with the streamers, as well as an 11% rise in basic wages, which the studios have rejected. Several more weeks of negotiation look likely. Factoring in a similar ratification process, things are unlikely to get back to normal much before Thanksgiving, in late November.That will mean a production crunch at a time when Hollywood is normally winding down. After nearly five months on hold, film and television schedules in 2024 are looking rather bare, so studios will rush to cram in as much production as they can. Time is running out to save next year’s summer blockbusters. ■ More

Nissan announced Monday that all new models it launches in Europe will be fully electric.
The Japanese carmarker said it was “pressing ahead” with the existing target just a week after the U.K. pushed back a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel car sales from 2030 to 2035.
“There is no turning back now,” Makoto Uchida, Nissan president and CEO, said in a statement.

Japanese carmarker Nissan announced Monday that all new models it launches in Europe will be fully electric, as it reaffirmed its aim for solely electric vehicle sales on the continent by 2030.
It said it was “pressing ahead” with the existing target just a week after the U.K. pushed back a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel car sales from 2030 to 2035.

“There is no turning back now,” Makoto Uchida, Nissan president and CEO, said in a statement. “We believe it is the right thing to do for our business, our customers and for the planet.”
It says one-third of the more than 1 million EVs it has sold worldwide have been in Europe.
Globally, Nissan plans to launch 27 electric and hybrid vehicles, which includes 19 all-electric models, by 2030. The company was an early pioneer in the EV space but has struggled with competition from Tesla and China’s BYD.
It also plans to introduce cobalt-free technology to reduce the cost of EV batteries by 65% by fiscal 2028 and launch a vehicle with its own all-solid-state batteries (ASSB) by that year. It claims these will reduce current charging times by two thirds.
Nissan partner Renault, as well as rivals Ford and Stellantis, have all announced plans to make their European passenger ranges fully electric by 2030.

The U.K.’s pushback of the 2030 sales target was criticised by Ford UK Chair Lisa Brankin, who said it created uncertainty and risked taking focus away from the EV transition.
Nissan confirmed one of its upcoming EVs will be made in its plant in Sunderland in the U.K.
“Sunderland is one of our major plants where we have history, cost competitiveness … and we would like to further show our electrification strategy here in this country,” Uchida told CNBC’s Arjun Khapal at the Nissan Design Europe studio in London.
Uchida said the automotive industry was “evolving and challenging everywhere in the world.”
In China, he said the company would look to launch cars more quickly and launch new models targeting specific consumers. More

Hollywood scribes initiated a work stoppage in early May as negotiations broke down with studios including Disney, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers resumed last week after months of starts and stops.
The WGA and AMPTP are still drafting the final contract language.

Hollywood’s writers and studios have a preliminary labor agreement.
Talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers resumed last week after months of starts and stops, ultimately leading to a tentative deal that would end the ongoing writers strike.

The WGA and AMPTP are still drafting the final contract language.
“What we have won in this contract — most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd — is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days,” the WGA negotiation committee wrote in a letter to members Sunday night. “It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal.”

Striking members of the Writers Guild of America and supporters march toward the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, June 21, 2023.
Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Hollywood scribes initiated a work stoppage in early May as negotiations broke down with studios including Disney, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery. Television and film writers sought protections against the use of artificial intelligence, in addition to increases in compensation for streamed content.
The WGA did not disclose what provisions ultimately made it into the preliminary contract, but told union members that “this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”
Once the WGA and AMPTP agree on the language within the contract, the negotiating committee will vote on whether to recommend the agreement and send it to the Writers Guild of America West Board and the Writers Guild of America East Council for approval. Then, the board and council will vote on whether to authorize a contract ratification vote by membership.

WGA leadership noted that the strike is not over and no members of the guild are to return to work until the agreement is officially ratified. Members were encouraged to continue standing in solidarity with striking actors on the picket lines.
“SAG-AFTRA congratulates the WGA on reaching a tentative agreement with the AMPTP after 146 days of incredible strength, resiliency and solidarity on the picket lines,” the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists wrote in a statement Sunday. “While we look forward to reviewing the WGA and AMPTP’s tentative agreement, we remain committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members.”
Following negotiations with writers, the AMPTP will need to turn its attention to SAG-AFTRA. The acting guild’s members have been on strike since mid-July and are seeking contract updates similar to those requested by the writers.
Hollywood performers are looking to improve wages, working conditions, and health and pension benefits, as well as establish guardrails for the use of AI in future television and film productions. Additionally, the union is seeking more transparency from streaming services about viewership so that residual payments can be made equitable to linear TV.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. More

STANTON, TENNESSEE, looks like a place from a bygone age. The town hall quaintly resembles a 1960s grocery store. Next door is a cannery, where townsfolk use communal stoves to make soups and peach preserve for winter. For much of its history, Stanton’s main source of income has been cotton farming, which was so depressed, many smallholders upped sticks and left.Yet amid the cotton fields something remarkable is taking shape. Ford, one of America’s three big carmakers, is setting up the biggest industrial complex in its history, including an electric-vehicle (EV) plant, a battery factory and a base for its suppliers, with an investment of $5.6bn. A year after it broke ground thousands of acres have been covered with concrete and steel. Construction workers in high-vis jackets stomp into Suga’s Diner, the only food joint in the 400-person town, for lunches of fried chicken and catfish. When Ford announced the project in 2021, the diner had a sign lamenting a shortage of chicken. Now a help-wanted sign points to a shortage of staff. “We are rushed off our feet,” says Lesa “Suga” Tard, the owner.It is a similar story in De Soto, Kansas. Its industrial activity was abruptly cut short decades ago when an army munitions factory was mothballed. In April construction began on a $4bn Panasonic battery factory, the largest investment in the state’s history. Driving to the 9,000-acre site in his pickup truck, Rick Walker, the mayor, points out diggers turning a country road into a four-lane highway, counts the cranes—nine of them—helping erect the factory’s second storey, and talks optimistically about a giant solar farm due to be built nearby.image: The EconomistA drive over several days down parts of America’s “auto alley”, which stretches from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, provides a glimpse of industrial history in the making. The country is in the grip of an investment boom in everything from semiconductor “fabs” to solar farms (see map). By late 2022, firms had announced a cumulative $210bn of investments in EV and battery factories in America, up from $51bn at the end of 2020, according to Atlas Public Policy, a data gatherer. Such investments have already contributed to a boom in American construction spending, which has doubled since the end of 2021, according to government statistics.Several factors explain what some are calling America’s manufacturing renaissance. President Joe Biden claims much of the investment is the result of financial incentives resulting from the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), two of his signature policies. But state and local giveaways also help. So does the desire to outcompete China, as well as reshoring after supply-chain chaos during the pandemic. In the case of carmakers like Ford, which decided to build at Stanton before the IRA was passed, the fear is that unless they seize the initiative on electrification, they will lose their dominance of America’s car industry to Tesla, the EV front-runner.Given how attached Americans outside a few coastal cities remain to their gas guzzlers, the surge in EV and battery factories may seem like white elephants in the making. Yet the companies behind them clearly see a commercial logic. And the factories are already playing a role in national debates. The EV and battery plants are important points of contention in a strike against Detroit’s big three carmakers, Chrysler (part of Stellantis, whose biggest shareholder part-owns The Economist’s parent company), Ford and General Motors (GM). Both Mr Biden and Donald Trump are due to visit Michigan in coming days, to support the strikes. The United Auto Workers (UAW) is worried that the new factories will be hard to unionise. But the cost of labour is likely to be pivotal in determining whether America’s manufacturers can regain their mojo or not.There is little evidence of a full-blown migration of the car industry from the unionised north to the less union-friendly south. James Rubenstein of Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, who specialises in the geography of the car industry, notes that non-American carmakers have been building factories in the south for decades. And as much new activity is happening in the old carmaking states as in the new ones. GM’s first contiguous EV and battery plant is in Detroit, close to the dilapidated and graffitied factories left over from the city’s heyday. Two hours’ drive away, Ford plans to build a battery plant in Marshall, Michigan, using technology from a Chinese company, CATL. “Everyone’s getting a pretty fair share of the largesse, both north of the Ohio River and south,” says Mr Rubenstein.image: APThe megaprojects may not, then, be reconfiguring America’s large-scale industrial geography. But at the local level, their impact is extraordinary. They are sprouting up in left-behind places that for years waited in frustration for a manufacturing revival to arrive. These places have several things in common.First, they long ago earmarked huge spaces of unproductive land for industrial development. Allan Sterbinsky, mayor of Stanton, says the town set aside 4,000 acres for industrial development decades ago; the state government even set up an office in Japan to promote it. Toyota, a Japanese car giant, made a few exploratory approaches. But it took Ford to ensure that the town’s ambitions could be realised, he says. In Kansas, De Soto started drawing up plans to rezone 9,000 acres for development a decade ago.The second common feature is the availability of labour. Though many of the new factories are in rural backwaters, they have access to big pools of workers within commuting distance. Once up and running, Ford’s operations are expected to employ 6,000 workers, about 15 times more than Stanton’s meagre population. A technical college on site will in time train future workers. For now, it will be fairly easy to find them in Memphis, which is about a 40-minute drive away, and which the car industry has hitherto overlooked. De Soto has 1.5m potential workers within a 30-minute radius, including Kansas City, so Panasonic should have no problem hiring 4,000 people, says Mr Walker.The new factories will nevertheless contribute to further clustering in the American car industry—a third shared trait. This is helpful in order to minimise the cost of transporting heavy batteries. Ford will have SK On, its South Korean battery partner, on site in Stanton. It will also have car-parts suppliers, such as Magna, directly on its doorstep. Unlike the gigafactory in Nevada, where Panasonic has teamed up with Tesla, the Japanese firm’s De Soto plant will supply more than one customer, and make different types of lithium-ion batteries.The projects’ reliance on copious sources of clean energy, meanwhile, makes them symbiotic with the proliferation of wind and solar developments nearby. The skyline along the Kansas prairies is thick with wind turbines, which generate almost half of the state’s electricity. The Tennessee Valley Authority, a multi-state utility, is investing heavily in new solar and other forms of generation capacity to meet sharply rising electricity demand in the south because of projects like Ford’s.Still, there are a few big bones of contention. One is the cost and efficacy of government incentives to promote the investment boom. Ford and SK, which are also building two battery factories in Kentucky, have conditionally been granted a $9.2bn loan from the Department of Energy. They also hope to qualify for a battery-production tax credit under the IRA. Panasonic will reportedly receive $830m in state-funded tax credits, as well as potential IRA support.A new report by Ahmed Medhi and Tom Moerenhout, of the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, calculates that the IRA tax credits provide savings of more than 30% for battery manufacturers, helping bridge the gap between the cost of producing batteries in America and China. However, their success in stimulating investments may make their fiscal costs higher than projected. They are also triggering “subsidy wars” with the European Union. Although they might boost factory towns, that comes at a cost to the taxpayer, and perhaps in the long term, blunts the industry’s incentives to innovate. De Soto had to offer tax breaks and the like to lure Panasonic, which for many months kept its identity secret even from town officials so as not to tip off competitors.Another concern is the environmental and social impact of investments. Companies want to develop greenfield sites in places where demand for labour is not too fierce. But that can stir hostility from locals who resist turning fields into factories and worry about pollution and overuse of local resources, even in the service of a “green revolution”. Some also fear that industrial development will destroy the traditional character of their towns, or increase living costs. At a café in De Soto, Kira Horn, a waitress, describes how at night the lights on the cranes, which work around the clock, make the site look “like a city”. Although people like her boss, who is also an estate agent, are already relishing the business and property boom, some of her young friends worry that it will price them out of buying homes.Then there is the union challenge. Neither Kansas nor Tennessee are union-friendly states. In contrast to GM, which has a unionised factory near Nashville, Tennessee, Ford’s workers at Stanton will not automatically be required to join the UAW. This has caused friction. In June the UAW’s president, Shawn Fain, blasted the Biden administration for lending money to the Stanton project without agreeing wage requirements up front.Ford caught a breather on September 22nd when the UAW decided to expand its strike only at factories run by GM and Stellantis, saying it had made progress in negotiations with Ford. But the carmaker will be loth to give much ground on Stanton. Erik Gordon of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business says that the revitalisation of American manufacturing will hinge on automation and labour. The Detroit carmakers’ EVs will be uncompetitive if labour costs are too high, he says.If America’s entrepreneurial muscle is to be rebuilt and left-behind places revived, as the champions of local projects hope, these hurdles will need to be overcome. And Mr Biden’s turn towards subsidies could still bring with it economic costs for the country at large. But, although it is early days, the prospects for Stanton look encouraging. The presence of Ford’s supply chain so close to the factory floor is likely to attract more small businesses. The mayor’s projections show that, as a result of Ford’s investment, the town’s population is likely to grow about 20-fold in just over a decade. Mr Sterbinsky is already securing investments in water, sewage and other infrastructure to support that growth. He has toured southern states to learn how to turn sleepy places into creative hotspots that attract enterprising types. Stanton’s genuine southern treasures, such as the cannery and Suga’s Diner, are a good start. ■ More