DENSO Corp. and Hanshin Electric Co. Ltd. have formed Wuxi DENSO Hanshin Automotive Products Co., Ltd. In Wuxi, Jiangsu province, China, to produce automobile ignition coils. The joint venture will be launched with an initial capital investment of approximately $20.6 million (2.1 billion yen), and is expected to begin commercial production in January 2007. Wuxi DENSO Hanshin Automotive Products is DENSO's fourteenth, and Hanshin Electric's first production base in China.
"Because of the growing demand for electronically controlled engines for automobiles and increased production by automotive manufacturers in China, DENSO and Hanshin Electric decided to jointly produce ignition coils in China," said Hiromi Tokuda, managing officer of DENSO's Powertrain Control Systems Business Group. "This allows us to improve product lineup and differentiation to meet customer needs. We'll supply these products to auto manufacturers conducting business in China."
The new entity will produce two types of ignition coils: a stick with a cylindrical magnetic circuit, and a plug-top coil, with a square magnetic circuit. The stick coil has a magnetic circuit that fits into the plug-hole of an engine, increasing available engine space, whereas the plug-top coil has a magnetic circuit on its upper cover, so it can produce more power and allow greater flexibility in plug-hole size.