JATCO (President & CEO Shigeo Ishida, Headquartered in Fuji City, Shizuoka, Japan, Capital: 29.9353 billion yen), a manufacturer of automatic and continuously variable transmissions (AT/CVT), has announced that it will begin production of CVTs with auxiliary gearbox for mini and small FWD vehicles at the company's China based production plant JATCO (Guangzhou) Automatic Transmission Ltd. (JGZ; President: Takashi Kamijukkoku) starting in April 2011. This is the latest CVT model from JATCO and the first time that CVTs with auxiliary gearbox will be produced at a plant outside Japan.

With an original structure which adds an auxiliary gearbox to the standard belt CVT, this CVT significantly expands the transmission gear ratio while gaining improvements such as reduced size and weight as well as high efficiency. This further enables responsive starting and acceleration at the same time as noise reduction at high speeds, greater ease of vehicle installation and higher fuel efficiency. Total accumulated units produced since start of production, in August 2009, are 330,000 units. The CVT is currently installed in such vehicles as Nissan's JUKE, MARCH, Suzuki's Wagon R.

While belt CVTs for medium FWD vehicles are currently being produced at JGZ, which began full operation in September 2009, the plant will now also produce JATCO's latest model CVTs with auxiliary gearbox. Production capability for CVTs with auxiliary gearbox is 240,000 units per year, and with this expansion, production capacity will be expanded to 380,000 units per year as of April 2011. While the belt CVTs for medium FWD vehicles are currently installed in Dongfeng Nissan's TEANA, QASHQAI, X-TRAIL and SYLPHY, the new production CVT with auxiliary gearbox is scheduled to be installed in the new model SUNNY for Chinese market which is to be announced at the Guangzhou Motor Show this December.

Since started manufacturing belt CVTs in 1997, JATCO has maintained its leading position in the industry through consistent efforts to cultivate and develop global markets, through commercializing world-first technologies. Currently JATCO is the only manufacturer that has a full lineup of CVTs from mini-vehicles to 3.5 liter class vehicles. In 2009, JATCO recorded the largest share in the global CVT production at 41%.
.