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9 10.29 to 11.3.2018 AutoData News Agency Weekly Edition is produced by AutoData Editora Ltda . Rua Pascal, 1693 Campo Belo - São Paulo SP Brazil CEP 04719-001 Phone +55 11 5189 8900 . Translation: Allex Chies. Graphic Project/Art: Romeu Bassi Neto. Associated Team: André Barros, Bruno de Oliveira, Caio Bednarski, Leandro Alves, Márcio Stéfani. Responsible Journalist: Vicente Alessi, filho MS SJPESP 4 874. Editorial agreements: Tiempo Motor (Argentina) and Flash de Motor (Venezuela). The copying and/or distribution without previous permission are strictly forbidden. Even so, there is no forecast for a manufacturer to nationalize production to serve Brazil and South America. The main obstacle, according to Édson Orikassa, president of the AEA, Brazilian Association of Automotive Engineering, is the demand: “Currently the production of automatic transmissions is carried out in few countries. To justify the investment to produce here (in Brazil) the produced volume must be high, something around 600 thousand units per year. But the ideal would be a little above that. “ In a recent interview with AutoData, ZF’s president for South America, Wílson Brício, projected a minimum demand of 1 million units to justify investment for the technology. Other executives follow the same reasoning. The demand is close to the magic number, if not higher, and, so far, there has been no movement for a local production. In the latest launches, the automatic transmissions come from Japan, China and Germany (from suppliers that already have operations here) such as Aisin and Jatco. And the lack of a Brazilian production already brings some problems for automakers. This is the case of Nissan, which will not be able to meet further requests of vehicles for PWDs until January for not having automatic gearboxes to equip the models. According to its commercial director, José Luiz Vendramini, if there were more availability of automatic transmissions it would be possible to meet all the requests: “Regarding cars for PWDs we have a waiting queue until January, because the demand was very high, it exceeded all our expectations. We can’t resolve this issue in the short term by all the logistics involved in importing the CVT transmission, which comes from China”. For the coming year, Nissan already negotiates with the headquarters and its supplier, Jatco, to increase the annual imports of the component: “If necessary, we can invest together with our supplier to increase its production capacity and, with this, increase the volume that we import “.