MG Motor UK : SMTC UK's role in GM-SAIC powertrain programme

MG Motor UK Limited has today revealed that some of the nearly 300 Engineers employed by SAIC Motor UK Technical Centre Limited (SMTC UK) at MG Birmingham are playing an important role in the development of the new powertrains covered by the GM-SAIC Global Next Generation Advanced Powertrain Technology Agreement (the Technology Agreement) which the two companies signed on the 17th August, 2010.

The Technology Agreement covers both a new 1.0 to 1.5 litre family of compact, lightweight, turbocharged engines with in-cylinder fuel direct fuel injection and a new front-wheel-drive transmission which will feature dry, dual-clutch technology. The new engines and transmissions are expected to reduce fuel consumption by over 20 per cent and to lower CO2 emmissions by even more than that.

The development of the new powertrains will also be carried out by General Motors and SAIC Motor Engineers in Detroit and at the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Centre (PATAC) in Shanghai – PATAC is the two OEMs’ Design and Engineering JV and was founded on the 12th June, 1997. The work will be fully integrated between General Motors and SAIC Motor which will result in cost and time savings while the two companies will share the IPRs at a global level.

[Source: MG Motor UK Limited]

[Editor’s Note: AROnline ran an Automotive News Europe/Reuters article under the headline China Watch: General Motors and SAIC Motor deepen ties on the 18th August, 2010 and queried the relationship between the new 1.0 to 1.5 litre GM-SAIC Motor engines and SAIC Motors’ own NSE family of engines in an accompanying Editor’s Note. Our subsequent efforts to clarify the point have so far proved to be inconclusive. However, commercial logic would suggest that there should, at least, be some degree of parts commonality…]

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Clive Goldthorp

Clive claims that his interest in the BMC>MG story dates back to his childhood in the 1960s when the family’s garage premises were leased to a tenant with an Austin agency. However, back in the 1920s and 1930s, his grandmother was one of the country’s first female Garage Proprietors so cars probably run in his genes!

He owned an 06/06 MG TF 135 and then a 15/64 MG3 Style for much of the time he has been associated with AROnline - more recently, though, he has re-kindled a long-standing Alfa Romeo affair with an 18/68 Giulia Veloce 280...

Clive, who was AROnline’s News Editor for nearly four years, stood down from that role in order to devote more time to various Motor Racing and other projects, but remains active behind the scenes sub-editing content on a regular basis.

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