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Tesla Inc. has applied for construction permits to move ahead with more than $700 million in investments on the Austin, Texas, campus of its newest manufacturing plant.

The funds are earmarked for a “ground up and complete interior finish out of the EV manufacturing facility,” with construction starting later this month and ending early next year, according to filings dated Monday with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

It’s unclear how much of that investment is included in the more than $1 billion Tesla has said it planned to spend on the plant.

Tesla didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The investment was reported earlier by the Austin Business Journal.

The EV market leader started production at the factory last year and currently makes its battery-powered Model Y passenger vehicle at the plant. Tesla relocated its headquarters to Austin from Palo Alto, Calif., in late 2021.

A decade ago, China used low prices to dominate solar manufacturing, wiping out Western competitors just as worldwide demand for panels started to soar. The U.S. and Europe are determined not to let the same thing happen with hydrogen.

As the world sprints to decarbonize, the next round of competition revolves around a device called an electrolyzer. Plug these into clean electricity such as solar power, and it's possible to extract hydrogen from water without producing any planet-warming emissions. That's a crucial step in creating a green fuel capable of decarbonizing such industries as steel, cement or shipping.

Companies around the world are already revving up electrolyzer production, green hydrogen plants are under construction, and the industry is finally making the leap from pilot projects to industrial scale. BloombergNEF, a clean energy research group, estimates worldwide electrolyzer production will need to grow 91 times by 2030 to meet demand. But man…

For years, Elon Musk paid zero dollars for traditional advertising while almost singlehandedly keeping Tesla — and himself — front and center. With a never-ending stream of tweets, television and podcast appearances and livestreamed product events, the electric-vehicle maker and its billionaire CEO dominated news cycles and occasionally went viral.

Musk was a veritable hype machine, and his knack for breaking through meant that when Tesla managed to execute, its valuation soared to a stratosphere no automaker had ever come close to reaching.

Last year, Musk was in the news like never before, albeit for problematic reasons: his offer to buy Twitter, his attempt to back out, and his sowing of chaos once he finally did take over. All the while, for three quarters in a row, Tesla under-delivered on one of the metrics that matters most: the number of electric vehicles it handed over to customers.

What’s worse, the hype mach…

"For the longest time I was talking to the wrong people. I was trying to reach out to principals of high schools and automotive tech teachers directly. Had some mild success but not the success we were looking for. So we ended up going to the school district ... and [they] talked to the principals and automotive teachers on our behalf and gave them what we have to offer. And that is when applications started coming in left and right."

Mitch Moncur, co-owner of Denny's Auto in Riverton, Utah, talking about how he developed his technician apprentice program on the "Ratchet & Wrench Radio" podcast.

Jay Goninen is the co-founder and president of WrenchWay.

First car: 1987 Ford Ranger (rear end blew up immediately)

First concert: Brooks & Dunn

Pet peeve: Loud eaters

Most thrilling/adventurous thing you've done: Raced stock cars when I was a teenager

Personal hero: Roger Penske

Something on your bucket list: Attend the Daytona 500

One thing you learned on the job you never forgot: The value of a good team; no one person can do everything themselves

Three people you'd invite to dinner, living or dead: Michael Jordan, [hot rod designer] Boyd Coddington and Dale Earnhardt

What did you want to be when you were a kid? Race car driver

Do you collect anything? Nostalgic items from service shops; I love the history of our industry.

What's your TV streaming binge show? "Yellowstone"

You're king for a day. What's your first or…

A former parts and service manager has sued a suburban Atlanta dealership for age discrimination, claiming he was demoted at age 61 to a significantly lower-paying position after telling a supervisor he planned to continue working until he was at least 67.

Jeffrey Copeland's federal lawsuit against Don Jackson Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram North in Cumming, Ga., seeks back pay and damages under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

According to the suit, filed Nov. 28, the dealership hired Copeland in late summer 2021 and demoted him to a used-car manager position on April 1, a few months after his supervisor asked about his retirement plans. "As a result of the demotion, both his compensation," which dropped by about half, "and job authority substantially decreased," the suit said.

Copeland no longer works at the dealership, according to his lawyer, Julie Burke, of Atlanta.

During Copeland's time as parts and service manag…

Like many businesses, auto dealerships are not immune to departments becoming "siloed" or engaging in turf battles. But for a dealership to succeed, the sales and service departments must work together. Senior Editor Dan Shine spoke with Dave Foy, vice president of operations for dealership training company Quantum5, and social psychologist Deb Mashek on how customers benefit and business thrives when dealership sales and service departments cooperate. Foy and Mashek, author of Collabor(h)ate: How To Build Incredible Collaborative Relationships at Work (Even if You'd Rather Work Alone), also wrote a guest column on the subject for Automotive News.

For the past six years, NADA has organized a "Women Driving Auto Retail" video contest. Women in the automotive retail industry can submit a short video talking about themselves, how their career started, their responsibilities and what they love about their job. The goal is to celebrate women in the industry and recruit more females to join them.

Walser Automotive Group, which has dealerships in Minnesota, Illinois and Kansas, produced a powerful video this year titled "The Time is Now." It features women from across the dealership group talking about how they never thought they would work in the auto business — and why that is.

The women outline why the industry is a great place for women to work — career opportunities and growth, a way to provide for their family — and what skills they bring (new perspectives, relationship building, diversity). The video finishes up with a call for changes to be made now.

"Walser's 2023 submissio…

If you had to find a suitable animal for each of the Volkswagen Group's 12 brands, the image of a lizard would come to mind for Audi. A lizard has a striking appearance but is also rather immobile most of the day.

Within the VW empire, no one doubts the competence of Audi's engineers or the ability of the designers to create elegant premium vehicles. Still, Audi did too little in 2022 compared to its premium competitors Mercedes-Benz and BMW. And in 2023, there is little sign of improvement.

Postponed market launches due to software issues, the winding up of the Artemis autonomous flagship car originally planned for 2024 and falling behind in electric cars mean that CEO Markus Duesmann cannot be satisfied with the brand's performance in 2022.

Audi is under close scrutiny from the Porsche-Piech families --- VW Group's majority shareholders who have always had a special affinity for the brand.

New VW Group CEO Oliver Blume -- who also leads Porsche…

LAS VEGAS — Automotive technology company Harman sees new cabin features such as monitoring a driver's vital signs or upgrading audio experiences as an essential marketing strategy automakers can use to attract buyers.

The tech, part of Harman's growing automotive product portfolio, aims to enable car brands to create in-vehicle experiences that meet the unique demands of their specific customers.

"The in-cabin experience becomes the differentiator," Armin Prommersberger, senior vice president of product management at Harman Automotive, told Automotive News.

That entails every digital facet of a vehicle, including the displays, user interfaces, features such as cabin climate controls and the overall connectivity of the vehicle, Prommersberger said.

One Harman innovation unveiled at the CES technology show last week uses neuroscience, artificial intelligence and machine learning to expand the capabilities of the company's Ready Care solution, which…

CDK Global’s Service Shopper 2.0 E-book reveals shifts in customer attitudes, explores new trends and provides a roadmap to winning more service business.

Service Shopper 2.0 holds the key to unlocking more business.

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How customer expectations and behaviors have changed since our first study in 2020 New findings on how they book service appointments, how they view their service experience, their driving habits and maintenance philosophies Their feelings around topics like Connected Car technology, EVs and new trends, such as pickup/delivery, mobile repair order and payment, and remote services What draws shoppers back to dealerships for service Valuable business-driving data and insights can be yours when you download your free Service Shopper 2.0 e-book.