How do you simulate a whole 150,000-mile car lifetime in a few months? That is the basic problem going through engineers at automotive proving grounds. Within the newest video from Lucid, you’ll be able to see a peek into the way it works.
I like this video, as a result of I like proving grounds. I’ve solely been to 1—Hyundai Motor Group’s facility within the Mojave desert—and completely liked the expertise. Hyundai laser-scanned and recreated a few of the most tortuous bits of the U.S. interstate system on the facility, and torture-tested automobiles by driving them on undulating pavement, high-speed ovals, off-road trails and thru salt baths. It bakes its automobiles in ovens—with salt nonetheless on their underbodies—and makes use of sun-tracking circumstances within the desert solar to do accelerated UV-wear testing. It was an extremely spectacular facility, and a visit I nonetheless recount regularly right this moment.
An aerial view of Chrysler’s former proving grounds.
But whereas that strategy is frequent amongst so-called “legacy automakers,” who virtually all have Arctic, desert and specialty proving grounds, some startups take a much less critical strategy to sturdiness testing. Tesla, for one, famously makes use of its customers as beta testers. The model nonetheless does some sturdiness testing, however I’ve by no means seen proof that Tesla has a similar-caliber facility to what the large corporations use.
Lucid Motors
Lucid desires to set itself aside from Tesla. Not simply in effectivity, however in its strategy to sturdiness and high quality. Early Lucid Airs had high quality issues you’d anticipate from a model new firm—and MotorTrend’s long-term tester had loads of points—but it surely’s been working exhausting to construct a dependable and sturdy product. That is very true for the upcoming Gravity, its first SUV, which can be requested to do some more durable off-road work.
Lucid’s sturdiness testing video exhibits the Gravity negotiating some gnarly rocky roads, coping with undulating “cosin” bumps, plodding via sand, sitting on a suspension shaker, towing trailers and doing repeated acceleration makes an attempt on a steep hill.
It is a more durable testing routine for what’s purported to be Lucid’s hardest product but. Primarily based on the testing process, it appears to be like able to deal with a beating. However Lucid clearly is not going to indicate if the SUV has issues or breakdowns in its promotional movies, and the actual world can throw curve balls not often seen in repeatable, deliberately designed check. We’ll have to attend till the Gravity launches later this 12 months to see Lucid’s work on the proving grounds ends in a product that is prepared for prime time.