Volkswagen's Clever New Wind Tunnel Can Simulate Any Weather Conditions
Volkswagen has launched a new wind tunnel capable of simulating ‘real-world’ driving conditions in wind speeds of up to 155mph and within a 90-degrees Celsius temperature range.
The main purpose of the investment is to reduce the costs of its on-location activities in super-hot and sub-zero locations around the world, and of course to increase efficiency for all of its cars.
The new €100 million facility at Wolfsburg has been built to let VW make its cars as slippery as possible through the air. Each of the car’s wheels gets its own rolling belt, which VW says can let the engineers simulate turning motions more realistically than before., making sure nothing weird happens to the air flow in the process.
Cleverly, the tunnel will be able to simulate not just wind, but rain, humidity, snow and strong sunlight between -30 and +60 degrees Celsius. It’s also about six times faster to set up than the previous system, taking just five minutes. A full drag coefficient test takes only 20 minutes.
Comments
Not a fan, i should bring them turbine, it’s much better
Still can’t beat Koenigsegg. Savage B-)
Yeeeeah that was irrelevant
If you have to call yourself a savage, you’re very clearly not a savage.
The voice-over is really really annoying isn’t?
I prefer a heavy German accent over this any day.
Yes, it is! But they do German voice-overs when people speak English on the tv. And that is even more annoying!
What dieselgate?
Any weather conditions? What, including diesel smog clouds?
Three hours too late damnit
Critics were blown away - literally.
100 million euros? That’s quite an expensive way to save money.
100 milion for a wind tunnel when the fans wanna see them at WRC and LeMans?
This could mean a lot of Vag brand going in various series (porsche or audi in f1, wrc, Formula e, lmp1 with toyota staying next year)
Go take it out In real weather conditions it’s cheaper
You can’t create snow when it’s sunny and vice-versa. That’s the purpose of the machine
Daimler-Benz did this in 2011