Nissan Motor Co. will establish a new automatic transmission manufacturing company in the summer of 1999, the company said Friday.
In addition to improving efficiency in automatic transmission development and production within the Nissan Group, Nissan, through the new company, will try to expand sales of both automatic transmissions and continuously-variable transmissions to other automakers.
Nissan plans to separate its automatic transmission development department and existing Fuji Plant, which currently produces automatic transmissions, and turn them into the new company.
Nissan Executive Vice President Kosei Minami told a news conference that the new firm is expected to be merged with Nissan-affiliated JATCO Corp., one of the world's leading automatic transmission makers.
The new firm is expected to have about 7,000 employees and annual sales of 300 billion yen, he said.