Shenyang Aerospace Mitsubishi Motors Engine Manufacturing Co. (SAME), Mitsubishi Motors' engine joint venture in China, will start building a series of small engines with displacement under 1.6 liters from this August.

 

The global automaker will export the engines from China to other Asian markets in the future. 

 

"Initial capacity is 100,000 units per year and the scheduled output volume for this year is 20,000 units," Mitsubishi Motors' Beijing office says in a report.

 

Mitsubishi Motors signed the technology transfer agreement with SAME in March 2007 allowing the latter to produce the 4A9 series of engines in the northeast China city of Shenyang.

 

The 4A9 engines are a family of all aluminium alloy, four-cylinder engines using continuous variable valve timing technology. The engines are available in 1.1, 1.3, 1.5 and 1.6 liters.

 

Mitsubishi developed the 4A9 in 2004. The engines were produced in Daimler AG's engine plant, MDC Power GmbH, in Thuringia, Germany in the past. Mitsubishi used to have a 50 percent stake in the plant but withdrew it in 2006.

 

"It will be the first time for the 4AG engines to be produced in Asia," Mitsubishi Motors says in the written reply.

 

Volume production is scheduled to start at SAME in August, but Mitsubishi Motors declines to say which displacement models will be built first.

 

The engines will be mainly sold to automakers in China in the begining, but the Japanese automaker also expects to sell them to other markets.

 

"We are looking to develop SAME into Mitsubishi's major engine production base for the Asia market," Mitsubishi Motors says. 

 

Mitsubishi has yet to decide on when to export 4A9 engines, it adds.

 

According to the agreement Mitsubishi and SAME signed in 2007, output capacity of the 4A9 engines will be expanded into 300,000 units by 2010.

 

SAME is a joint venture of Mitsubishi, China Aerospace Automobile Co., Shenyang Brilliance Jinbei Automotive Co. and a Malaysian company. The joint venture builds 2.0- and 2.4-liter engines to supply automakers in China at present.

 

Mitsubishi Motors' other joint venture engine plant in China is Harbin Dongan Automotive Engine Manufacturing Co. in the northeast China city of Harbin.

 

Dongan builds Mitsubishi's 4G1 and 4G9 series engines with displacements from 1.3 to 2.0 liters, plus transmissions. It started supplying key engine parts to Mitsubishi Motors' headquarters in Japan from late 2008.