Antonov, which develops a range of unique automatic gearboxes, is pleased to announce that it has signed "Heads of Agreement" with Rotrex A/S, a subsidiary of the AP Moller Group, the largest Danish group of companies.

This announcement formally recognises the established working relationship between both companies to commercialise jointly an automotive supercharger solution. Prototypes of this solution are currently being marketed to a number of the world’s largest motor vehicle manufacturers as it has applications in mass produced petrol and diesel cars as well as in future hybrid and hydrogen powered vehicles.

Work on a customer-funded application is expected to begin in the near future, with small series production anticipated before the end of 2005.

The Rotrex supercharger is driven via a small step-up drive module, based on Antonov’s AMM technology. The Antonov gearbox is used to adapt the input speed of a Rotrex supercharger to achieve optimum operating range. The use of a step-up gearbox in this application will facilitate the "down-sizing" of both petrol and diesel engines. This cost- effective solution is expected to improve both performance and fuel efficiency as well as to reduce motor vehicle emissions.

Roumen Antonov, the Company’s Chairman, said:

"This jointly-developed product offering creates a significant new marketplace for our technology while at the same time building on the success and strengthening the basis of our core transmission application business. We are very impressed with the performance of the Rotrex supercharger and believe that together we have developed a market-leading product."

Anders Jensen, Rotrex A/S Managing Director, said:

"We are very excited about the potential of the combination of our two companies’ technologies and believe that sales potential is significant and will approach the level of current OEM installed turbo-chargers."