In its latest effort to buttress the powertrains in its own-brand passenger cars, Dongfeng Motor Corp last week partnered with German transmission producer Getrag International GmbH to jointly develop and make transmissions.

The two companies formed a 50-50 joint venture in the central Chinese city of Wuhan with a total investment of 120 million euros ($155.7 million), Dongfeng said in a statement.

Workers on the assembly line making Dongfeng's own-brand Fengshen S30 in Wuhan. In the second deal in several weeks, the country's second-biggest automaker has reached an agreement with another high-profile European auto firm. [Zhou Chao / for China Daily]

The partnership will have an annual production capacity of 250,000 dual-clutch transmissions in the first stage, figure that is projected to grow to 500,000 units.

The first product from the joint venture will be a low-torque dual-clutch transmission scheduled for production at the end of 2015.

The joint venture will include an R&D center with full development capacity for all kinds of transmissions, said China's No 2 auto group by unit sales.

Getrag is one of the world's largest independent transmission suppliers for passenger cars and light-duty commercial vehicles. It sold 3.5 million transmissions last year globally.

The move came after the Wuhan-based Dongfeng's acquisition of Swedish T Engineering, formerly a unit of Saab Automobile Powertrain, earlier this month.

T Engineering works on R&D for control systems used in combustion engines, transmissions and chassis, as well as research into hybrid and electric cars.

Dongfeng said products from its joint venture with Getrag will be able to meet the demand of the majority of its own-brand passenger car lineup now and in the future.

Dongfeng aims to boost sales of its own-brand passenger cars to 1 million units a year by 2016.

It said the joint venture's transmissions will also supply Dongfeng's car tie-ups with foreign brands, other domestic carmakers and overseas markets in the future.

Dongfeng runs joint ventures with Nissan and Honda, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Kia.

The Chinese auto group aims to sell a total of 3.3 million vehicles this year, up from 3.06 million units in 2011.

gongzhengzheng@chinadaily.com.cn