BorgWarner (BW) has inked a contract for a transmission joint venture (JV) with China Automobile Development United Investment (CDUI), a company owned by Chinese automakers FAW, SAIC, Dongfeng, Chery, ChangAn, Brilliance, Guangzhu, Changfeng, JAC, Geely, Polarsun and Great Wall Motor.
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The JV, called BorgWarner United Transmission Systems, will be based in Dalian and produce dual clutch transmission modules from 2011. BW holds 66%.
“By leading the dual clutch transmission expansion into the Chinese market, this joint venture will establish BorgWarner’s DualTronic technology as the preferred automatic transmission solution in China,” claimed BW chairman and CEO Tim Manganello.
Because the technology was based on a manual transmission architecture, it was especially attractive in China, where OEMs have a solid manual transmission infrastructure, BW said.
The joint venture would allow Chinese OEMs to make the technological leap to world-leading dual clutch transmissions quickly and cost effectively.
Exisiting customers include VW, Audi, Bugatti, SAIC, Nissan and Getrag whose PowerShift-brand transmissions are used by BMW, Ford Europe and Mitsubishi.
BW said it was currently working on about 25 projects with transmission and vehicle makers world wide and expected applications to quadruple to 3m transmissions a year by 2014.
