[News Article] Pedal to metal at Hyundai’s brutal desert test track
Pedal to metal at
Hyundai’s brutal desert test track
BY SARAH CHEA, Korea
JoongAng Daily - About a two-hour ride from Las Vegas, sits Mojave Desert, the
largest desert in California. Driving one more
hour through the vast desert, camouflaged Hyundai Motor EVs and SUVs were being
tested at its 17.7 million-square-meter (190.5-million-square feet) California
Proving Grounds, where all Hyundai and Kia cars must be examined before hitting
the North American roads. It’s the “most
suitable ground to test vehicles in extreme conditions,” in Hyundai’s words,
with the average temperature staying at 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees
Fahrenheit), going up to 54 degrees Celsius in summer and dropping to zero
degrees in winter. “We test cars on
various major areas including off-road driving, safety and cars’ functions
based on U.S. regulations at Mojave proving grounds,” said Lee Sung-yop, vice
president at Hyundai America Technical Center during a recent media tour. Taking on the wheels
of a Sorento SUV on a four-kilometer off-road track, which was full of holes
and bumpy roads, the car smoothly passed the section without any big shakes. There was gravel and
sand everywhere, but the car was not agitated by the road conditions, leaving
this reporter without any motion sickness at all. The Mojave proving
grounds now have seven off-road tracks, from just one in the beginning, and is
planning to have more in the future. “SUVs account for 60
percent of our sales in the North American market while 20 percent are for
pick-up trucks, which means testing on off-road driving is essential,” Lee
said. The track comes with
12 test sites including a 10.2-kilometer high-speed circuit and a 5.3-kilometer
course to evaluate the powertrain. More than 300 cars are examined at the
proving grounds every day. This reporter then
switched seats to the Genesis GV70 to run the high-speed circuit — an EV with a
top speed of 200 kilometers per hour. Sharp curves and
steep hills were not enough to stop the EV, with the cornering and handling
being unexpectedly smooth and gentle. Making circular
turns and pressing brake pedals to their maximum made this reporter feel like
the main character from “Fast & Furious." Every car must run
more than 30,000 miles or more than 4,000 laps of the circuit to pass the test. “EVs weigh over 400
kilograms more than gasoline cars, which require various running and heat
control tests,” Lee said. Hyundai mainly
conducts tests on days with over 45 degrees Celsius and solar radiation that
has an intensity of more than 1,000 watts per square meter. When testing the
latest Ioniq 5N, a high-performance model based on the Ioniq 5, it was a very
important criterion to make the car’s temperature exceed 60 degrees, Hyundai
said. Opened in 2005, the
Mojave grounds are the No. 2 proving grounds in terms of size and performance
in North America, with the location only a two-hour drive from Los Angeles
compared to other big three U.S. automakers who all have their grounds in
Michigan. Hyundai invested 80 billion won ($60.9 million) for the
construction. Hyundai attributes
the Mojave proving grounds for its latest success in the U.S. market. Hyundai Motor and
Kia were the fourth-largest car-making group in the United States last year,
beating Stellantis for the first time in its history. The carmakers sold a
record 1.65 million cars in the U.S. market last year, up 12.1 percent on year.
It's the first time their combined sales exceeded 1.5 million. Source: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-15/business/industry/Pedal-to-metal-at-Hyundais-brutal-desert-test-track/1958768
2024.01.16
>
>
