Volkswagen inaugurated the new cold and climate test center at its Wolfsburg plant on Monday.
The new center, which cost about 30 million euros, is designed for comprehensive testing under a wide variety of climatic conditions at temperatures ranging from -40 to +150 degrees Celsius. Even direct solar radiation, humidities up to 95 percent, elevations up to 3000 meters and wind blast can all be simulated.
All Volkswagen models face laboratory testing as one of the key components of technical development. The seven test chambers with highly advanced roller and test rig systems as well as an additional engine test bed are all available for laboratory testing.
Vehicles will no longer be heated or cooled to the test temperatures required in the test chambers themselves, as was previously the case, but in upstream conditioning boxes.
The center features 13 cold and climate test cabinets for component testing. These cabinets, with volumes ranging from 0.5 to 24 cubic meters, are used for testing parts such as injectors, windscreen wipers and doors under extreme climatic conditions.
The cold and climate test center will allow Volkswagen to expedite the product creation process, with considerable cost and time savings. To date, changes in the design and development phase have been very costly and time-consuming. In future, it will be possible to include initial experience with prototypes in the development process at an earlier stage.
Volkswagen Research has developed a type of high temperature fuel cell (HTFC) that is one of a kind in the world. The high temperature fuel cell eliminates numerous disadvantages of low temperature fuel cells (LTFC) previously known and used in virtually every type of vehicle with this propulsion system.
The high temperature membrane developed by Volkswagen can in combination with newly designed electrodes be "driven" at temperatures of up to 120 degrees Celsius with no loss in performance. In the HTFC protons are exchanged via phosphoric acid. This acid has good electrolytic properties similar to water, yet demonstrates a higher boiling point. This is why a significantly simpler cooling system and water management is sufficient for the HTFC. And this significantly reduces the weight and costs. The space required for the fuel cell system is also lowered by more than 30 percent.
Volvo Car Corporation and AB Volvo (Trucks and Buses), are now setting up a joint Traffic Accident Research Centre in China. With its active traffic accident research, Volvo is continuing to acquire information and expertise in the drive to develop safer vehicles, while at the same time hoping to contribute to safer road traffic in the world’s most populous country.
This week, as the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority begins to test a new plug-in hybrid electric bus, University of Kansas engineers will help monitor how it performs and measure what impact it has on air quality.
The bus works by running on electricity until the battery is nearly depleted. Then it switches to a backup diesel engine and operates like a conventional diesel-electric hybrid. It is later plugged into an electrical outlet to recharge the battery. Using grid power for some of its operation significantly reduces its use of petroleum fuel.