Antonov secures customers for Six Speed Automatic Transmission in China
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The Board of Antonov is pleased to announce that it has secured its first confirmed customer in China for its new six speed automatic transmission.

Following the recent demonstrations of its technology in Chong Qing, PR China, Antonov has now received formal interest from Lifan Motors in relation to Antonov's six speed transmission for its mid sized sedans from late 2010.

Demonstrations have occurred in Chong Qing to seven interested customers each of whom expressed how impressed they were with the vehicle performance. Loncin supported these demonstrations and Mr Gao, Chairman of Chong Qing Loncin Industrial Group commented, 'The shifting quality is great - I don't believe it is just a demonstrator.'

The vehicle has now been moved to Shanghai to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University who will support demonstrations to a further five potential customers. These include Geely who have expressed strong renewed interest in the Antonov technology now that its performance and efficiency have been proven.

Further high level meetings will be held with Government Agencies, customers and partners in China during December 2008.
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http://paultan.org/archives/2008/12/05/lifan-signs-up-for-the-6-speed-antonov-tx6/

Antonov has secured its first customer for its new Antonov TX6 6-speed automatic transmission: Chinese automaker Lifan Motors. Antonov had earlier demonstrated a Volkswagen Golf 1.6 with the TX6 transmission installed to 7 potential customers and so far Lifan has bit. Geely is also showing strong interest in the transmission.
The TX6 can handle up to 260Nm of torque and is suitable for engine sizes from 1.5 liters up to 2.5 liters. It is produced in China exclusively for the Chinese automaker market but will be made available worldwide in the long term. It can shift from any gear to any gear, thus you can downshift 2 to 3 gears at once without delay. Also, a torque converter is not used but instead an indirect brake is used to launch, similiar to Japanese CVTs. The AMG Speedshift-MCT transmission is another planetary gearbox that does not use a torque converter to start up, instead it uses a start-up clutch.
Someone should tell Youngman that more gear ratios to keep the rev needle at an optimum rev band more often would do wonders for the odd torque curve of the Campro engines found in its Europestar RCR (rebadged GEN2) and Europestar Jingyue (rebadged Persona).
Look after the jump for some technical diagrams of the TX6.