Truck owners stepped up orders for big rigs at a time when buying typically slows, pushing backlogs at factories to the highest levels in nearly two decades.

With the U.S. on the brink of a global trade war, importers and exporters are asking: Is there method to President Trump’s madness?

The first batches of batteries from electric and hybrid vehicles are hitting retirement age, yet they aren’t bound for landfills. Instead, they’ll spend their golden years chilling beer at 7-Elevens in Japan, powering car-charging stations in California and storing energy for homes and grids in Europe.

Last month, Tesla Inc. cobbled together an additional production line in a tent on the grounds of its Fremont, Calif., factory to try to boost production of the company’s Model 3 electric sedans.

Elon Musk has few days to make good on his pledge that Tesla will be pumping out 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week by the end of the month. If he succeeds, it may be thanks to the curious structure outside the company’s factory. It’s a tent the size of two football fields that Musk calls “pretty sweet” and that manufacturing experts deride as, basically, nuts.

With the U.S.-versus-the-world trade war threat heating up, Harley-Davidson Inc. and Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman Corp. may just be the canaries in the coal mine.