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), announced today that it commenced production of CVTs with auxiliary gearbox for small FWD vehicles at the company's China based production plant JATCO (Guangzhou) Automatic Transmission Ltd. (JGZ; President: Harumi Okazaki)． A commemorative ceremony was held on site on the same day marking the first shipment of units. JGZ becomes the first production base outside Japan for this latest CVT with auxiliary gearbox and the third production base after the company’s Fuji Area and Kakegawa Area for this CVT

With an original structure that adds an auxiliary gearbox to the standard belt CVT, this CVT significantly expands the transmission gear ratio, reduces size and weight as well as achieves high performance efficiency. This enables a balance of responsive starting and acceleration at the same time as noise reduction at high speeds, enhanced fuel efficiency and use in wide ranges of vehicle types and classes. A total of 600,000 units have been produced since the start of production in August 2009. This CVT is currently installed in such vehicles as Nissan’s Juke, March, Suzuki‘s Swift, and Wagon R.

JGZ has been producing CVTs for medium FWD vehicles since September 2009 and now, the plant has expanded with the launch of JATCO's latest CVTs with auxiliary gearbox.. Production capacity for this new CVTs at JGZ stands at 120,000 units per year, with capacity set to be expanded to 240,000 units per year by autumn 2011. Once completed, this expansion will increase JGZ’s total production capacity to 380,000 units per year and augment JATCO’s global production capacity of the CVT with auxiliary gearbox to more than 1 million units. The new CVT with auxiliary gearbox is scheduled to be installed in Dongfeng Nissan’s Sunny for the Chinese market.

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