AUBURN HILLS, MICHIGAN – Transmissions and clutch systems supplier BorgWarner announced on Jan 14, 2009 that it has entered into a joint venture agreement to manufacture a range of dual clutch transmission systems in China, beginning in 2011.

The JV agreement links BorgWarner to the China Automobile Development United Investment Co Ltd, a consortium of no fewer than twelve leading Chinese automakers. CDUI includes FAW, SAIC, Dongfeng, Chery, Brilliance, Guangzhou, Geely, Great Wall Motor, ChangAn, Changfeng, JAC and Polarsun. Together, the first seven of these domestic Chinese automakers produced more than 1.25 million passenger cars in 2007, according to figures published by Automotive News.

BorgWarner will hold a 66 percent majority share in the joint venture, to be known as BorgWarner United Transmission Systems Co Ltd. The operation will be sited in Dalian, in Northeastern China, and gives BorgWarner access to the largest domestic carmakers in a country which, despite a slowdown in growth to 6.7 percent in 2008, has the second biggest car market in the world at almost 9.4 million units.

BorgWarner believes that DCT’s close link with the architecture of manual transmissions, the dominant solution in China with three quarters of the passenger car market, is especially attractive for Chinese automakers and will allow them to “make the technological leap” to world-class DCT transmissions “quickly and cost-effectively”.

"By leading the dual clutch transmission expansion into the Chinese marketplace, this joint venture will establish BorgWarner's DualTronic technology as the preferred automatic transmission solution in China," said Tim Manganello, BorgWarner Chairman and CEO. "BorgWarner is honored to join CDUI and its 12 Chinese OEM partners in bringing the benefits of DualTronic technology -- improved fuel economy, lower emissions and a dynamic yet comfortable driving experience -- to the growing automatic transmission market in China."

Historically, carmakers in China have had to import automatic transmissions, often at great expense. There are no domestically developed and manufactured ATs, though some automakers are conducting research. This situation, says Prof Dr Jun Li, director of FAW’s research center in Changchun, has led to the share of automatics in Chinese car sales lagging behind that in other countries. By developing dual clutch transmissions, Prof Li told DCTfacts.com at a recent conference, FAW can become more independent.

“DCT is something we can do ourselves – this is why we selected it,” said Prof Li. “We believe we can improve it and upgrade it step by step.”

FAW’s decision to focus on DCT for its automatic transmission needs came at the end of a two-year feasibility study aimed at finding out whether this type of transmission would meet the particular  requirements for China in terms of consumer tastes and existing manual transmission manufacturing capacity.

Prof Li cites figures from China Automotive Information Net which show that while 80 percent of domestic and 90 percent of imported large cars are fitted with automatic transmission, for mid-sized cars the figures drop to 38 and 60 percent respectively. For small family cars the contrast is starker still, with only one in ten domestic buyers opting for automatic, compared with four in ten for internationally-branded models. Almost all of these automatics are of the conventional stepped planetary type, says Li.

But by 2013, he forecasts that manuals will decline to 65 percent of the China transmission market, with planetary ATs taking 25 percent, CVTs 2.5 percent and DCTs seven percent. If the Chinese market continues to grow, that seven percent share could correspond to a million units by 2013.

These are the kind of figures that make global suppliers sit up and take notice. BorgWarner, for its part, is keen to facilitate the expansion of the dual clutch market by providing the clutch systems, control modules and torsional vibration dampers that are the critical precision components of DCT transmission systems. The company has a declared strategy to focus on components and sub-systems in this way, rather than to enter the market for DCT manufacture.

This is the pattern already evident at Volkswagen, where BorgWarner clutch systems are applied to in-house VW gearboxes, and at other automakers such as BMW and Ford where Getrag transmissions are again fronted by BorgWarner clutch technology.

Nevertheless, in December 2008 BorgWarner showed a significantly different design for a low-cost dual clutch transmission aimed at emerging markets such as China [INSERT LINK TO LO-COST ARTICLE 0109LEAD1locost3FINAL], again stating that it wanted to license out the manufacture of the gearbox whilst supplying the clutches and other peripheral systems.

The low-cost DT170 design will make dual clutch transmissions some 20 percent cheaper, Bernd Matthes, president of BorgWarner Transmission Systems, is quoted by Automotive News China as claiming.

In the same report Matthes predicted that the joint venture would be supplying 80 percent of the locally produced automatic transmissions used by the 12 automakers.

Given the importance of these automakers in the overall picture of China’s domestic production, it is clear that dual clutch transmissions are set to become the preferred automatic solution for the Chinese market – not only because they can build on an already substantial industrial base for manual gearboxes, but because they offer significant performance and emissions advantages as well as providing the ease of driving demanded by a rising generation of new motorists unfamiliar with the tricky business of operating a manual gearshift and clutch pedal.

The FAW solution

As one of the principal partners within the BorgWarner DCT alliance, FAW is convinced of the appropriateness of the solution for the Chinese market.

In addition to BorgWarner, FAW is working with Continental Automotive Systems on an integrated range of transmission units which will cover FAW’s complete range of vehicles – from compact-segment front-drive hatchbacks weighing under 800 kg to B and C-segment ranges approaching 1800 kg in mass, some with rear wheel drive.

Three different transmission architectures are called for, says FAW director of R&D Prof Dr Jun Li. Presenting his plans to the CTI transmissions symposium in Berlin in December, Prof Li showed BorgWarner’s low-cost five-speed DT170C with a torque handling capacity of 170 Nm as the unit serving FAW’s three smaller model families, covering the 800 to 1200 kg weight range; larger ranges up to 1500 kg would use the seven-speed 7FCDCT350F, while the biggest models built on rear-drive platforms would employ the 350R, a version of the same unit but reconfigured for inline RWD or 4WD installation. These two units can handle up to 350 Nm torque.

In FAW’s matrix there is an impressive degree of commonality, contributing to cost savings across the board: oil pumps are shared throughout and the two larger transmissions have the same dual clutch pack; sensors, transmission control ECUs and filters are again common to all three.

Already, prototype vehicles equipped with the low-cost transmission have been achieving fuel consumption improvements of 20 percent compared with a conventional four-speed automatic; this unit is scheduled to reach the market in 2011, suggesting it may be one of the first production applications of the DT170. FAW’s timeline shows the two larger transmissions reaching the market in mid-2011 for the front-drive version and towards the end of 2012 for the rear- and four wheel drive derivative.

Story Filed: 1/23/2009
By Tony Lewin, managing editor DCTfacts.com