According to Ricardo, KATE has already built and tested concept demonstrator units, and has started preparation for a new manufacturing facility in Kaliningrad to support volume production. Ricardo was therefore contracted to help it complete the design and development of the new transmission. The objective is to develop a first derivative of the new transmission family set to be launched in a Lada B/C class car in 2012.
The program will be supported by Ricardo staff at the company's technical facilities in the UK, US and Germany. Ricardo will be responsible for all transmission engineering work through to the end of the production and prototype phase, including detail analysis and design, software, prototype manufacture, calibration and rig test.
After this, Ricardo will support KATE's industrialization of the design and maintain development responsibility for control software and calibration until the transmission reaches volume production.
“This new project builds upon an already well established and highly beneficial relationship between our companies. It also serves to demonstrate both the extent of Ricardo's automatic transmission development capability and the geographical reach of our operations," said Ricardo group global product group director for transmission & driveline systems, Lee Sykes.
"KATE's Project FT702 is on a new scale for the Russian automotive sector and this is a new sort of project in Russia. To reach series production in a high technology automotive sphere in today's world it is essential to use the combined efforts, knowledge and experience of world leading engineering companies. We now have all the foundations to achieve successful results by mutual cooperation during the execution of the FT702 project," added KATE general director Evgeny Novitskiy.
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