Borg Warner announced the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Arndtadt, Germany, which will effectively double the manufacturing area of its dual-clutch transmission modules dubbed DualTronic. The company will have 107,000 square feet at its disposal, and the move will create 150 new jobs by 2010. A vehicle lab and test track complete with tight curves and steep grades are part of the expansion.
The old plant manufactured about 1 million DualTronic units in its four-year existence, but the new, combined facility is expected to build 2.3 million transmissions per year once fully up and running. Borg Warner forecasts demand for dual-clutch transmissions to increase five-fold by 2013, and is therefore planning on investing about 26 million euro (nearly $40 million) on the expansion.
Borg Warner already supplies VW, Audi , Nissan , BMW , GM, Toyotoa, Bugatti , Fiat and others with their dual-clutch transmission under various monikers, with the DSG unit in the Volkswagen GTI as one of the first and most popular examples.
