The Today in Manufacturing Podcast is brought to you by the editors from Manufacturing.net and Industrial Equipment News (IEN). In each episode, we discuss the five biggest stories in manufacturing, and the implications they have on the industry moving forward. This week, we discuss:

Worker Receives Final Paycheck in Pennies

A Georgia man says his former employer owed him $915 in back pay after he left his job in November. After he left A OK Walker Autoworks, his final check never came and he had to bring it to the Georgia Department of Labor.  Well, he finally got paid, and he woke up to find 90,000 oil-covered pennies at the end of his driveway.

China Fears Eavesdropping Teslas

The Chinese government has concerns over Teslas and state security. According to Bloomberg, the vehicles have been banned from military bases. The Chinese military thinks Tesla’s cameras could transmit classified information, so owners are being asked to park off site or stop driving them altogether.

Fire at Chip Plant Adds to Shortage

Last week, an electrical fault at a Renesas chip plant in northern Japan caused a fire to pour smoke into a cleanroom. The company says it will take at least a month to resume production on its 300mm wafer line. Auto parts suppliers will begin to see chip shipments fall in about a month and automakers like Honda, Toyota and Nissan are “facing a difficult situation.”

AeroMobil Tests Flying Car Prototype’s Airworthiness

Flying car startup AeroMobil recently released footage from test flights of the company’s experimental prototype conducted late last year. The company is developing a vehicle that rides and flies with the comfort of a luxury automobile rather than the bare-bones experience of most single-engine aircraft.

Massive Cargo Ship Blocking Suez Canal

A container ship the size of a floating skyscraper has become wedged across the Suez Canal in Egypt and it's threatening to disrupt a global shipping system already strained by the coronavirus pandemic. It's an extraordinary event that hasn't happened in the canal's 150-year history. 

In Case You Missed It

Stellantis Cost-Cutting Includes Toilets

Production costs at Italian Stellantis factories are higher than any other manufacturing facility so the company is cutting cleaning services, reducing the temperature and limiting the number of toilets available to staff.

Grape Nuts Returns to Stores After Months-Long Shortage

The Great Grape-Nuts Shortage of 2021 has come to an end. The brand will reimburse eligible fans who paid inflated prices for Grape-Nuts cereal, which reached up to $110 a box on the secondary market during the pandemic-related shortage.

Russian National Pleads Guilty in Tesla Extortion

A Russian man pleaded guilty to offering a Tesla employee $1 million to cripple the company’s electric battery plant in Nevada with ransomware and steal company secrets for extortion.