PLYMOUTH, MI—Mahle Powertrain USA is building a $4 million dynamometer facility here for electric vehicles. It will be capable of supporting full power train development, from the testing and calibration of individual drive components to the complete driveline systems of complex four-wheel-drive vehicles.
When it opens this fall, the facility will enable advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) technology assessments, U.S. and European emissions testing capability, and drivability development testing all on the same testbed.
“This investment underscores our determination to provide world-class services to our clients through the provision of state-of-the-art facilities and expertise,” says Hugh Blaxill, managing director of Mahle Powertrain USA. “The new facility will extend our unique capabilities to cover client requirements both in the U.S. and globally, and will prove an invaluable resource for light-duty and heavy-duty manufacturers alike.
“Crucially, this means we are able to conduct a significant amount of development and validation work without requiring a large number of prototype vehicles to be built by the manufacturer,” explains Blaxill. He claims the new test facility will enable the early assessment of various power train layouts and allow testing to be conducted before a completed chassis is available, which will “help manufacturers to significantly shorten the overall development cycle.”
According to Blaxill, the state-of-the-art facility will enable the development of power train systems, the calibration of transmissions, hybrid and battery-electric power train configurations, real driving emissions (RDE) measurements and EV range determination.
The testbed will also support evaluation of ADAS technologies, including lidar and radar sensor packs, and will feature climatic conditioning ranging from -10 C to 40 C.
