Aisin Unveils Six Speed Transmission Lineup for North American Market

New Porsche Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg equipped with Aisin Six Speeds

DETROIT, March 4 -- Aisin World Corp. of America (AWA) today announced that it has completed its current lineup of six-speed transmissions for the North American automotive marketplace. Junichi Nishimura, president, AWA, made the announcement at the 2003 Society of Automotive Engineers Exhibition in Detroit.

"Six-speeds transmissions are the future of automotive drivetrains," said Nishimura. "And at AWA, drivetrains are our core business, and we are leading the way for six-speed development on behalf of manufacturers and consumers." The automatic and manual transmissions are available on FF and FR vehicles as well as passenger cars and light trucks, Nishimura said.

"Our mission as an international transmission supplier is to engineer advanced, high performance drivetrains that lead to better fuel efficiency and environmentally-friendly technologies," said Nishimura. "By utilizing our expertise through research and development activities of transmission technology, we have added entirely new product lines to the automotive marketplace. Aisin AW's dual system technology, which integrates ECUs, inverters and the transaxle, has been developed for hybrid cars and will be supplied to the Ford Escape HEV at the end of 2003."

Six-speed transmissions offer sportier performance, better drivability and better fuel efficiency, which is an important consideration for environmentally-friendly vehicles, according to Nishimura.

AWA also announced that its six-speed FR automatic transmissions are being supplied on the new Porsche Cayenne and the new Volkswagen Touareg. Both SUVs were introduced just eight weeks ago at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show. In addition, AWA also provides the six-speed FF automatic transmission for the Audi TT and the Volkswagen New Beetle Convertible. Currently, AWA supplies six-speed manual transmissions on the Lexus IS300 and Mazda Miata. Nishimura said a new six-speed automatic transmission for pick-up trucks will be introduced to the North American market in 2004.

Aisin World Corp. of America is a subsidiary of Aisin Group headed by Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. with corporate offices in Kariya City, Aichi, Japan. Aisin Group is a worldwide supplier of automotive components, body parts, drivetrain components, engine-related parts, brake and chassis parts and information-related products. In North America, the Aisin Group has 22 manufacturing, R & D and sales centers. With more than 4,400 employees in North America, AWA totaled sales of $1.1 billion in 2002.