Aussie transmissions for London Taxi

[vztrt]

Couldn't find the old DSI thread.

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...25775300198911

DSI auto transmissions to go into iconic black cab in China under Geely deal

1 July 2010

By RON HAMMERTON

CHINESE ownership of Australia’s Drivetrain Systems International (DSI) is opening major doors for the automatic transmission supplier, with a deal to export Albury-made rear-drive transmissions for Chinese-built London Taxis from next year.

As well, DSI’s Australian-designed front-drive transmissions are set to go into production at a new 300,000-unit-a-year factory being built in China by DSI parent company Geely Automobile Holdings for the Chinese market.

The taxi deal involves exports of the five-speed transmission for the Chinese version of the iconic, boxy ‘black cab’ whose original UK manufacturer, London Taxis International Vehicles (LTI), also has been taken over by China’s rapidly expanding Geely, which gobbled up Sweden’s Volvo AB earlier this year.

The transmission – to be built on the Albury production line that until recently made four-speed auto transmissions for some Ford Falcons – will replace a Jeep Cherokee unit that is still fitted to the British-built variant of the TX4 London Taxi made in Coventry, where it is matched with a 2.5-litre VM Motori four-cylinder diesel engine.

At this stage, DSI has no deal to supply the same transmission to the UK factory of LTI, but with Geely now in control of both DSI and LTI parent company Manganese Bronze Holdings PLC, that remains a possibility.

Geely signed a joint-venture deal with LTI in 2006 to make its cabs in China, but since then, the loss-making British company has progressively been bought out by its Chinese partner.

Geely showed its own, more rounded version of the London taxi, called Englon TXN, alongside a standard UK-design TX4 at the Beijing motor show in April.

DSI commercial manager for rear-wheel-drive transmissions Michael Gilchrist confirmed the London Taxi deal, adding that DSI’s Albury factory was also gearing up to supply front-drive automatic transmissions for the Korean-made SsangYong C200 compact SUV later this year.

These export and technology deals mark a significant turnaround for DSI, which was snapped up by Geely for $47.4 million in March last year after the Australian company fell into receivership when export orders to the bankrupt SsangYong Motors dried up at the height of the global financial crisis.

The purchase not only saved DSI and the jobs of its remaining 168 workers but gave Geely badly-needed access to modern automatic transmission technology.

That technology is now set to be employed on a vast scale at a new $A280 million factory being built in China by Geely to make DSI’s six-speed, front-drive automatic transmission for current and future Geely and Emgrand models, including a yet-to-be-released compact SUV, the EX7, and the Rolls-Royce-like GE luxury limo.

A ground-breaking ceremony for the new plant – the first to put DSI transmissions into production outside Australia – was held in June.

The Shandong Geely Transmission Co factory will make up to 300,000 transmissions a year for the fast-growing Geely, which is scheduled to start exporting cars to Australia this year.

Geely also says it can expand production at the Shandong factory, and has hinted that other plants might be on the cards, referring to plants – plural – in its media release, saying DSI “will set up plants in China also serving other Asia markets”.

Although Geely is one of the smaller Chinese motor companies, its domestic sales have grown from zero to 329,100 in little more than a decade. This year, Geely sales are up 41 per cent and on target to top 400,000 units.

It has made its own automatic transmission in small numbers since 2005, but this unit was not suitable for larger cars now coming down the production lines. Sales of these vehicles have been restricted because of the manual-only design in a country where automatic transmissions are enjoying rapidly-growing take-up, from just 25 per cent in 2005 to an expected 50 per cent in 2015.

The shortage of local auto transmission engineering and production skills in China is so acute that 2.28 million of the 2.3 million automatic transmission cars sold in China last year were fitted with units made by foreign companies or joint ventures.

“DSI technology helps to break the wall,” Geely said in a statement announcing the ground-breaking ceremony in Jining, Shandong Province, for the new factory that is expected to begin production before the end of the year.

Geely praised the DSI unit – designed for vehicles with 1.8-litre engines or bigger – saying it would help to cut fuel consumption while providing smoother operation and cost savings.

Geely said the “localisation” of DSI automatic transmission production signalled the official launch of Geely’s strategy of “going outside, joining the international competition, attracting foreign investment and global integration”.

Geely vice-president An Conghui said the top-selling Geely Vision – a small sedan with 1.8 and 1.5-litre engines – would be the first model to be equipped with the Australian-designed six-speeder this year, with eight other models to follow before 2011.

One of those is expected to be the EX7, a Toyota RAV4-sized compact SUV that has been spied in testing on Chinese roads recently.

Chinese news reports suggest the SUV will be powered by a choice of 1.8-litre petrol and 2.0-litre diesel engines, making it similar in concept to the SsangYong C200 that will also use the DSI transmission.

Another vehicle to get the DSI box is expected to be the Geely-built, Holden Cruze-sized Emgrand EC7, which has been earmarked for introduction to Australia late this year by Perth-based Geely importer Chinese Automotive Distributors. The Australian launch of the car has been delayed until the arrival of the automatic transmission version – essential for success in this market.

The EC7 sedan and its EC8 hatch variation will be preceded on the Australian market by the Geely MK light car, which will be trialled first in Western Australia before the Geely brand is expended to the eastern states next year.

A 1.0-litre city car – called the Panda in China – is also on the list for the Australian Geely line-up.

While Volvo has joined the Geely camp after the Chinese company acquired it for $US1.8 billion ($A2.16b) from Ford Motor Company earlier this year, DSI has no immediate plans to export transmissions to the Swedish company.

Geely is expected to start building the Volvo S60 and XC60 at a new plant in China next year as it aims to sell about 150,000 Volvos in China by 2015.

[Paxton]

The transmission – to be built on the Albury production line that until recently made four-speed auto transmissions for some Ford Falcons – will replace a Jeep Cherokee unit that is still fitted to the British-built variant of the TX4 London Taxi made in Coventry, where it is matched with a 2.5-litre VM Motori four-cylinder diesel engine.

Last time I looked, Falcon was still using this transmission in Falcon - the eGas models.

While this is a good move, and should be considered so, I think it is only a matter of time that DSI/Ion/BTR gets shut down and the work moved to China - they're already taking the FWD transmission with them. It is great news in the short term, but in the long term, not quite so good.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by Paxton

Last time I looked, Falcon was still using this transmission in Falcon - the eGas models.

While this is a good move, and should be considered so, I think it is only a matter of time that DSI/Ion/BTR gets shut down and the work moved to China - they're already taking the FWD transmission with them. It is great news in the short term, but in the long term, not quite so good.

Actually they are expanding here. Gotta mate who just got a job with them. But I would have thought the same thing after the contract with Ford was not renewed.

[Paxton]

Originally Posted by vztrt

Actually they are expanding here. Gotta mate who just got a job with them. But I would have thought the same thing after the contract with Ford was not renewed.

That is good news.

[vztrt]

Aussie transmissions bound for China

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...2578E000103850

Albury’s DSI secures rear-drive transmission deal with mystery Chinese car-maker

2 August 2011

By RON HAMMERTON

CHINESE-owned Australian automotive transmission designer and manufacturer Drivetrain Systems International (DSI) has sealed a deal to export Australian-made rear-wheel-drive automatic transmissions to an unnamed Chinese vehicle-maker starting later this year.

The transmissions will be built at the company’s Albury plant which, ironically, is closed for two days this week due to a parts supply problem that has temporarily halted production of its six-speed front-wheel-drive transmission for South Korean car-maker SsangYong.

Like the SsangYong transmissions, which are fitted to the new Korando compact SUV, at least some of the rear-drive units are likely to boomerang back to Australia, this time in Chinese-built vehicles that are scheduled to go into production in early 2012.

DSI commercial manager for rear-wheel-drive transmissions Michael Gilchrist told GoAuto that the Chinese customer for the transmission had a business presence in Australia, but it was not DSI parent company Zhejiang Geely Automobile Holdings, which acquired DSI after it went into receivership when its major customer SsangYong hit trouble in 2009.

“It is not for our parent, I can tell you that,” he said. “It is for another customer.”

Mr Gilchrist said the export deal was good news for the plant, adding handy volume to the rear-drive production line.

“If you have compare it with the volumes for our other rear-wheel drive customers, it is reasonable,” he said. “And it is good because we have the plant capacity to allow us to do it.

“We don’t have to make any investment there; we just go ahead and do it.”

At least seven Chinese vehicle makers have established sales beachheads in Australia, with Great Wall Motors, Chery, Geely, Higer, Foton and JAC already operational through independent distributors, and ZXAuto only months from offering utes for sale.

Last year, DSI confirmed it was preparing to export a rear-drive five-speed automatic transmission to China for Geely-owned London Taxi International’s Chinese factory, starting this year.

GoAuto has spotted one of the 2.5-litre diesel-powered boxy black cabs under test in Melbourne in recent weeks.

The same five-speed transmission is likely to be the subject of the new export deal, details of which DSI says are still confidential.

The transmission is made on the same production line that built four-speed automatic transmissions for Ford Australia’s Territory and Falcon wagon and E-Gas models until last year, before the car-maker switched over to imported ZF six-speeders.

DSI also has a production-ready seven-speed rear-drive transmission that was originally developed for SsangYong’s Rexton SUV before the Korean company went bankrupt and the program was abandoned.

Capable of being upgraded to an eight-speeder, the transmission is sitting on the shelf at DSI’s Melbourne research and development centre, awaiting a customer.

The Albury factory is currently making small numbers of rear-drive transmissions for export, but has strong demand from SsangYong for front-drive transmissions for its Korando.

SsangYong is preparing to unveil a broader range of products in concept form at next month’s Frankfurt motor show, perhaps including passenger cars in need of an automatic transmission.

Mr Gilchrist said SsangYong was buying every front-drive transmission the factory could make.

Unfortunately, a glitch with supplied parts has upset production, with 250 workers having to bring forward two rostered days off while the company tries to sort the issue this week.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union’s NSW vehicle division secretary Sean Morgan told Albury’s Border Morning Mail: “They (DSI) haven’t got quality parts and they don’t want to make product with what they’ve got.”

DSI operations manager Barry Maginness was quoted as saying the arrangement was necessary as the factory was awaiting supplies from overseas.

Mr Maginness said production levels were expected to rise in late August with increased demand from customers SsangYong and Mahindra.

While DSI is working to secure production at its Australian plant, it is also helping parent company Geely to establish three major transmission plants in China.

The first, in the south-central province of Hunan, is set to begin production of the Australian-designed six-speeder in August – the first Chinese-made automatic transmission.

During its start-up phase, the plant is being managed by an Australian DSI production executive, who will turn it over to Chinese management as the factory ramps up production over the next six months. Ultimately, it will build a maximum of 200,000 units a year for Geely and other Chinese car-makers.

Two more similar plants are also under construction - one of them at Chongqing, the home city of major Chinese car-maker Changan.

Collectively, they will be capable of producing 600,000 automatic transmissions, all of them destined for the Chinese domestic car-makers.

The Albury plant is responsible for front-drive transmissions for customers outside of China, including SsangYong and its parent company, India’s Mahindra and Mahindra, while also producing all rear-drive transmissions globally, including for China.

[malazn mafia]

The transmission – to be built on the Albury production line that until recently made four-speed auto transmissions for some Ford Falcons – will replace a Jeep Cherokee unit that is still fitted to the British-built variant of the TX4 London Taxi made in Coventry, where it is matched with a 2.5-litre VM Motori four-cylinder diesel engine.

So over in London we will be hearing that all-familiar 1st gear BTR/ION 4spd whine as the taxi pulls off from the lights But it won't be the same without that straight-six growl accompanying it

[XRGhia]

Gives the effect of a slight supercharger?

[kpcart]

wasnt the btr originally german engineered then adapted by aussies?

[Paxton]

Originally Posted by kpcart

wasnt the btr originally german engineered then adapted by aussies?

Nope. The BTR 95LE (or whatever it is called) is just the BW35 with an extra gear, and electronics. The one in my EF still has BorgWarner casting marks on it.

[falconnut]

Aussies make excellent transmissions, win win for everyone

[vztrt]

If Ford would want the Falcon to get a duel clutch auto then DSI would be a company to talk too.

[08XR8]

I did hear that they are talking !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!