British transmissions break through in China
Antonov, after 15 years effort in Europe has broken into the Chinese market with a €20m licensing agreement and a 50:50 joint venture company with an initial production capacity of 200,000 units.
The subject of the agreement is the company's high efficiency, TX-6 six speed automatic transmission which has now been thoroughly tried and tested in a Volkswagen Golf over 75,000km without failure. Test driving the car shows that it performs excellently.
At a delivered cost of €1,000 and a compact size relative to alternatives, Chinese companies are already queuing up to test the new transmission, including Lifan motors which has developed a car which looks like a Western car on the outside, but is of completely Chinese design under the bonnet, making it much easier to work on. Selling price for the complete car in China is around €7,000. Other projects include novel automatic transmissions for UK and US luxury hybrid and electric cars and a two speed gearbox for alternators for military and special purpose vehicles, funded by the MoD.
Antonov transmissions are designed with the help of PTC's Pro/Engineer software
