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I’ve been reading T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets for most of my adult life. My relationship to it has evolved the way great long friendships do. There are years I stay in touch and years I drift away. When I come back, the poem hasn’t changed, but I have. Different passages come in and out of focus depending on where I am in my life and the day I am reading. A line near the end of “Little Gidding,” the last of the quartets, summarizes this sustained experience of the poem itself: We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.
Today, we travel back in time to 1996 when the Red Line train was a maze of passengers reading either the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun Times. You couldn’t find a seat where you wouldn’t accidentally get hit in the face by someone flipping the pages of a big, bulky newspaper.
I’ve been rereading Self-Consuming Artifacts by Stanley Fish, published in 1972, a classic of literary criticism on the experience of reading, and now I see its central thesis everywhere. Fish argues that certain texts don’t deliver a meaning so much as put you through something. They build a framework, make you invest in it, and then show you its limits. The text, as he puts it, consumes itself: “it is self-sharpening and what it sharpens is you.” I realize this sounds like an odd thing to bring up in Gear Technology, but one hopes every issue of the magazine is in some way an active experience that requires the reader to work, question their own assumptions, and possibly change their perspective.
When I attended the VDI International Conference on Gears in Garching in 2023, I was struck by how few American engineers were in attendance and by how much they were missing. This summer, another VDI conference in Baden-Baden should be on everyone's radar.
The gear blank is the quality ceiling of the finished gear. This article covers two areas of material specification that directly affect gear performance: controlling hardenability when sourcing blanks across global supply chains, and specifying microalloyed steels for high-temperature carburizing.
We have all seen the Q4 2025 headlines around electric vehicle (EV) sales and they were not good. Ford recorded a $19.5B loss in EV pullbacks (Ref. 1). General Motors posted $6B in EV debt (Ref. 2). Stellantis took a $26B hit which was compounded by underperforming EV sales and recovery from the previous CEO’s disastrous cost-cutting strategy (Ref. 3). Also, notably, was the laundry list of not-long-ago hailed startups that have went bankrupt, often leaving investors, suppliers and employees holding the bag: Bollinger, Canoo, Nikola, ELMS, Lordstown, Fisker, Arrival, Proterra, Volta just to name a few. Many more are on the brink along with dozens of startup suppliers that enticed investors with untold wealth to be gained in the automotive revolution 2.0 (Ref. 6,13,14).
Greetings 2026! As expected, EV demand has waned following some deregulation and tax credits being dropped as of September 2025. For us industry folks, this is simply reality catching up with the narrative. On the plus side, 2025 was a very good year for global vehicle sales–the best since 2019 (Ref. 1). A good economy can forgive many blunders. As gearbox designers, our work continues as our EV offerings are likely a permanent part of our product lineup, even if at a reduced volume.
I am bummed my schedule prevented a quick trip to CES 2026 in Las Vegas this year. Last year, I was wandering the technology halls studying the latest drones, e-bikes, humanoid robots, and electric motor technologies.
Drones are tasked with providing state-of-the-art autonomous capabilities, unique movements, automated inspection, urban delivery solutions and advanced military operations. They upgrade agricultural farming technology, provide safety and logistic solutions and report key disaster and engineering mapping. PT components such as motors, controllers, and sensors are an integral part of their core structure.
When Australian steelmaker InfraBuild needed two new circuit breakers to provide backup for its main electric arc furnace, ABB had the solution—its VD4-AF vacuum circuit breaker with an innovative servomotor actuation system that delivers more than five times the operations of a standard breaker, supporting greater reliability and safety as well as lower operational costs.
Of the 137 respondents to our annual gear-industry survey, the message was clear: tariffs are the defining challenge of 2026. But the frustration runs deeper than the duties themselves. Manufacturers can absorb cost increases; they can’t absorb chaos. When rules shift weekly and exemptions evaporate overnight, planning becomes guesswork. One respondent captured the exhaustion: “In 2025, they were all over the place, without warning, up and down. Terribly disorganized.” Yet within this turbulence, distinct currents run strong. Defense and aerospace work has surged. Oil and gas, buoyed by loosened regulations, is “very active” according to multiple respondents, with mobile power units and gas compression driving demand. Overhaul and repair business is booming—when new equipment becomes expensive or hard to source, companies keep existing machines running longer, and that means gears.
To meet the increasing demand for electronic control products, drive technology specialist, Nord Drivesystems, is expanding production capacities at their Aurich facility in Germany. This location has been manufacturing the company’s electronic drive components since the 1980’s and every Nord electronic drive, whether a control cabinet or decentralized solution, has been produced at the plant regardless of whether it is used in Europe, China, North America, or anywhere else in the world. Last August, Nord held a topping-out ceremony for the new building, celebrating the placement of the final, highest beam on the building’s structure.
MPT Expo 2025 welcomed 4,425 industry professionals including executives, engineers, plant managers, supply chain experts, military personnel and more.
From its origins as a small machine shop to becoming a global leader in precision engineering, Gleason Corporation has continuously redefined the industry. This journey, marked by pioneering inventions and strategic expansions, has left an indelible mark on sectors ranging from automotive and aerospace to robotics and renewable energy.
Step into an autumn landscape, and it quickly becomes clear that nature has little regard for tidy rules. Leaves spiral unpredictably, pumpkins swell into odd asymmetries, and apples wrinkle and pucker around their stems. Yet engineers have long clung to the comforting principle that form follows function, as if everything were designed purely to serve its purpose without deviation. Harvard’s L. Mahadevan, professor of applied mathematics, physics, and biology, reminds us that this is rarely the case. Through studies of crumpled paper, folding brains, termite architecture, and the trajectories of coins, he shows that what first appears chaotic often obeys a hidden logic—intricate, surprising, and unexpectedly beautiful.
If you are not familiar with the trade show world, it can be quite overwhelming. In a matter of days (with months and even years of planning behind it), you will see a large, empty convention center turn into a city filled with booths and exhibits that are bustling with companies all vying to showcase their products and solutions. Motion + Power Technology Expo (formerly Gear Expo) remains one of my favorite shows of all time. It not only taught me about the importance of face-to-face networking, but it truly helped me in my professional development.
The Motion + Power Technology Expo (MPT Expo) returns to Detroit from October 21–23, 2025, colocated with Heat Treat 2025, creating one of North America’s most comprehensive gatherings for mechanical, fluid, and electrical power transmission, materials processing, and thermal treatment technologies. This year’s events bring together engineers, researchers, technologists, and decision-makers from across industries to explore, connect, and advance the design, production, and integration of cutting-edge systems that keep modern manufacturing moving.
WEG, Petrobras, and Statkraft have put into operation the largest onshore wind turbine in the Americas. Petrobras invested BRL 130 million, originating from the R&D clause with ANP, and partnered with WEG, a global Brazilian manufacturer of electrical and electronic equipment, to develop the turbine. The project also received financing from BNDES and support from the Federal Government through the Ministry of the Environment. Built by WEG, with 7MW of installed capacity, it can generate around 2,500 MWh per month, equivalent to the annual consumption of about 15,000 Brazilian homes.
In recent months, a multitude of scientific studies have emerged on the energy transition and future electricity demand. These studies form the basis for the energy transition monitoring by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. A clear conclusion emerges electricity demand in Germany is set to increase. Regardless of short-term fluctuations, experts like Leonhard Probst from the Fraunhofer Institute predict a long-term upward trend in demand.
Picture this: A century ago, as steam-powered trolleys clanked through city streets and the first automobiles puttered down dirt roads, a group of visionary manufacturers recognized something crucial. The future of human mobility would depend not just on innovation, but on everyone speaking the same language of safety and reliability.
The AD Bearings & Power Transmission (BPT) Division proudly marked a major milestone recently, celebrating its 10-year anniversary during the 2025 North American Meeting held at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis. With record-breaking attendance of over 330 attendees, the event brought together members, suppliers, and industry leaders of the BPT community for three days of strategic collaboration, networking, and celebration.
Precision regrinding leaves no room for error. At Fraisa, direct data transfer between Zoller measurement systems and ANCA’s WheelServer ensures every grinding wheel pack is ready to perform—no guesswork, no rework. The result: 20 percent less downtime, 10 percent less rework, and consistently perfect tools on the first try.
To mark the company’s 100th anniversary, Festo designed an Incredible Machine for Hannover Messe 2025. It does not manufacture a specific product, but works on the principle of a Rube Goldberg machine, in which one impulse triggers the next. The Incredible Machine demonstrates the history of automation technology from the past to the present and reflects Festo’s fascination for motion technologies (pneumatic, electric, and digital).
Trade policy faces the end of stable, predictable global commerce—competing ideas are in a tug of war, and the tension between imagined futures and local reality is taut.
Call it destiny, divine intervention or good ole-fashioned fate, speaking with Alejandro Pardiñas, CEO of Atlantic Bearing Services (ABS) and ABS Wind, one gets the impression he had no choice other than to become a mechanical engineer. This was evident way back when his great-grandfather became a mining engineer for Rio Tinto.
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