In California City, west of the Mojave Desert, in the driest land in the western United States, lies Hyundai/Kia’s California Proving Ground (hereafter referred to as the Mojave Proving Ground). This is where the outstanding performance and high quality of Hyundai/Kia’s electric vehicles, which have been honored with automobile awards around the world, come together.
Today’s cars are a combination of many different technologies, including mechanical, electrical, and electronic engineering. With such a significant increase in the number of components that make up a car, ensuring high quality requires rigorous testing beyond real-world road conditions. This is to discover and solve problems that computer simulations can’t, and to improve technical perfection.
Hyundai/Kia built the Mojave Proving Ground in 2005 in search of the most extreme conditions. The area has a desert climate and is extremely dry. In summer, the average temperature is 39℃ and the ground temperature exceeds 54℃. On the other hand, in winter, the weather is mild with an average of 26℃, but when storms come, it rains and freezes. As such, the Mojave Proving Ground allows for testing in a wide range of conditions.
The Mojave Proving Ground covers an area of approximately 17.7 million ㎡. It has 12 test tracks, including an oval, a vehicle dynamics area, and an uphill track, and if all test routes are extended, the length will reach a whopping 61 km. In the United States, similarly-sized proving grounds are only owned by global automakers such as GM, Ford, and Toyota.
Local compliance testing, testing to North America’s legal standards, durability testing, and material environmental testing are conducted at the Mojave Proving Ground. While introducing the Mojave Proving Ground, Sungyop Lee, Vice President of HATCI, explained as follows.
“There are five main types of testing we do here. The local conformity test covers marketability-related areas such as ride comfort, steering stability, and noise, while the testing to North America’s legal standards covers safety-related performance such as vehicle rollover, braking distance, and accident avoidance speed. The durability test measures the car’s performance on various road surfaces, and the material environment test measures the durability of components in extreme weather conditions. We also focus on off-road driving and traction for SUVs that are popular in the North American market.”
At the Mojave Proving Ground, researchers from around the world, including HATCI, continue to test. Approximately 300 vehicles are tested annually, and the distance traveled on not only the test site, but also various locations in the United States, averages 200,000 km. The Mojave Proving Ground is the result of Hyundai/Kia’s commitment to providing safe mobility in any environment. This is also a driving force behind the company’s North American and global sales growth, and the foundation of their success in the EV and SUV markets.
As the global automotive market is rapidly transitioning to electrification, Hyundai/Kia is among the most successful companies in this transition. In particular, Hyundai Motor Group’s dedicated E-GMP-based EV models have been well received in markets around the world.
The popularity of Hyundai/Kia’s electric vehicles is due to their perfection. The requirements to perfect an electric vehicle are different from cars with an internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles have denser batteries, which add more than 300 kg of weight compared to internal combustion engines. The key evaluation factor is whether the suspension, tires, and body can withstand these loads placed on them. Moreover, managing the heat generated by high-voltage batteries and motors that spin at more than 10,000 revolutions per minute is also an important evaluation factor.
Hyundai/Kia is actively utilizing the Mojave Proving Ground to test thermal management performance in extreme environments. Electric vehicle thermal management and cooling performance tests are conducted intensively on days with temperatures above 45°C and solar radiation exceeding 1,000W per square meter. Sungyop Lee, Vice President explained the electric vehicle performance test as follows.
“Electric vehicles are heavier than internal combustion engine cars, so driving performance tests such as ride and steering stability are very important. We also test charging, discharging, mileage, thermal management, and other characteristics that are unique to electric vehicles at the Mojave Proving Ground. This is a test of many new technologies related to electrification in the era of electric vehicles.”
Hyundai/Kia has increased the intensity of its thermal management and cooling performance testing in the era of electric vehicles. This is to improve cooling performance and optimize the thermal management system to avoid excessive heat being generated in the motor or battery system under harsh driving conditions such as trailer towing, uphill driving, high-speed driving, and winding.
In the case of the IONIQ 5 N, for example, a key goal during development was to ensure that the battery temperature was controlled to not exceed 60°C, even in harsh driving conditions. After countless rounds of fast charging and driving at the Mojave Proving Ground, the conflicting goals of efficient energy management and maximizing driving performance were achieved.
Efforts to improve performance continue outside of the Mojave Proving Ground. The entire continental United States is a testing ground for Hyundai/Kia. Last year, research engineers at Mojave Proving Ground spent nearly 10 weeks optimizing the battery safety and thermal energy management of electric vehicles in a variety of environments in the United States, including Death Valley, Minnesota, and Oregon.
Performance testing of electric vehicles naturally includes an oval. This is a 10.3-km-long, oval, three-lane track that simulates an American highway. It is the largest test track at the Mojave Proving Ground and can conduct tests driving at 200 km/h. In fact, it’s so large that it takes three minutes to complete a lap.
New cars undergo a rigorous comprehensive endurance test on an oval. Over an average period of three months, the vehicle is driven at high speeds to measure its aging. At the same time, the drivetrain performance, wind noise, and other tests are evaluated. Each car is tested for 48,000 km and must complete more than 4,000 laps without incident to pass the test.
The Mojave Proving Ground has a number of track surfaces to evaluate the durability of electric vehicles with underbody batteries. The durability of the underbody of the vehicle is evaluated on a total of 16 types of track surfaces, including fixed tracks, uphill tracks, and off-road tracks, considering various external road conditions.
The durability test track is so harsh that driving just 16,000 km on it has the same effect as driving 160,000 km on regular roads. In particular, the twisting track surface is harsher than in the real world, which has a significant impact on battery and vehicle durability. Hyundai/Kia performs around 500 test drives here to ensure extreme durability.
Hyundai/Kia is taking advantage of the hot weather at the Mojave Proving Ground to test how each part of its cars is affected by the heat. The Material Weathering Facility measures the impact of sunlight and solar heat on parts of the car. It lists the many parts that make up a car, from exterior parts like bumpers, headlamps, and paint samples to interior parts like autonomous driving sensors, dashboards, and seats. These are exposed to extreme conditions for long periods of time to see how colors and materials deteriorate.
“The panel on which the parts are displayed moves according to the position of the sun and is constantly facing the sun during the day, which allows us to verify durability up to 30 times faster than strain testing in other regions,” said Youngjun Yoon, a senior research engineer on the Durability Test and Operations Team at HATCI The harsh test, which exposes the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of sunlight in just a few months, ensures that the panels can withstand extreme conditions.
Ride and Handling (R&H) is critical to building a car that drives well. At the Mojave Proving Ground, research engineers are testing electric vehicles on a variety of tracks to evaluate their ride and handling, including the vehicle dynamics area, the special surface track, and the handling test track.
The handling test track is a great way to ensure a car’s stability on the high, rugged and mountainous terrain of the United States. With a total length of 5 km, it consists of sharp curves and an 8% slope hill, allowing intensive tests of the car in marginal situations such as entering a corner at high speed and exiting at high speed. This leads to stable driving performance even on Korean roads with mountainous terrain.
The 5.3-km-long uphill track with a slope of 2 to 12% is primarily used to test the drivetrain’s uphill driving performance. It’s the perfect place to test the high torque of an electric vehicle. Research engineers test the acceleration of electric vehicles by repeatedly stopping and starting the vehicle on the sloped track.
Electric vehicles driven by motors have no engine noise, so external noise has a greater effect. As such, Hyundai/Kia is focused on reducing noise as much as possible in various road environments and driving situations. The Mojave Proving Ground’s special surface track replicates a variety of real-world road conditions on U.S. roads. As roads in North America are characterized by a variety of pavement types, a variety of pavement types have been applied throughout the entire section to reflect this.
Furthermore, North American roads are heavily coated with slurry seals to help the asphalt pavement last longer in sunny climates. As a result, the road surfaces are rough and create a lot of minor vibrations when driving. There is also a lot of noise generated while driving, due to things like roads weathered by wind, rain, and sun, bumps from driving over cracked asphalt, railroad crossings, manhole covers, etc.
Hyundai/Kia conducts U.S. compliance evaluations on a special surface track that replicates 30 different road conditions in New York, Detroit, Denver, San Francisco, and other U.S. cities, as well as a test track that replicates the “LA Freeway,” a representative main road in Los Angeles. The goal is to minimize noise, increase the car’s shock absorption, and reduce the amount of vibration that reaches the passengers to create a smooth ride.
Evolution is another characteristic of the Mojave Proving Ground. Global customer demands and market conditions are constantly changing. In response, facilities are improved and added to accommodate more rigorous testing. Matthew R. Seare of HATCI, who has been at the Mojave Proving Ground for 20 years and is in charge of operations and management, explains as follows.
“As technology advances, we’re constantly introducing new tests that didn’t exist 20 years ago. It’s a major challenge to build and maintain a variety of test tracks and research facilities according to each environment. At the Mojave Proving Ground, we’re working hard to preserve the desert’s natural beauty while conducting tests for the future.”
When the Mojave Proving Ground was completed, it had only one off-road test course. At the time, the focus was on simulating city and highway driving on paved tracks. Today, the Mojave Proving Ground has seven off-road courses, with more under construction. The goal is to create a car that can cope with any environment, in line with the global SUV trend. Heejin Kang, a senior research engineer at HATCI, explained as follows.
“The Mojave Proving Ground has added a variety of tests since its establishment. In the past, the main program was heat endurance testing for internal combustion engines, but now it has expanded to include driving and durability testing for electric and eco-friendly vehicles, off-road testing for SUVs, and more. The tests are changing as fast as the trends in the automotive industry are.”
The United States offers many opportunities for off-road driving and a variety of environments. This is why it’s important to verify a wide range of conditions in environments that are harsher than the roads the customer will drive on to ensure robust performance. “In addition to the existing unpaved test tracks, the off-road test has added various track surfaces to strengthen the verification of various external environmental conditions,” explained Kyungjae Lee, a senior research engineer on the Chassis and Thermal Performance Test Team at HATCI. He also added, “We’re building powerful SUVs that can meet the needs of customers in line with the global trend of camping and other outdoor activities.”
Off-road testing isn’t just for SUVs. It also leads to ensuring that the technology is safe for everyone. Traction control system (TCS) testing is a good example of this.
The TCS is an essential off-road feature that allows a car to easily navigate over bumps and potholes by concentrating driving force on the grounded wheels. Hyundai/Kia has prepared a variety of track surfaces, including sandy tracks, gravel tracks, and asphalt berms, to test the TCS. This is a test stage to develop off-road driving performance and improve the performance of the TCS at the same time. This is an explanation from Lance McLaws, a senior research engineer on the HATCI Chassis and Thermal Performance Test Team.
“I’m in charge of evaluating and tuning overall off-road driving performance, including driving force control in low-speed off-road driving situations and controlling wheel slip (occurs when a stronger force than grip is applied to the wheels). We’re also testing our cars on some of the toughest off-road surfaces. You’ll be surprised to learn just how much an SUV like the Kia Telluride can climb steep inclines and rocky roads.”
Off-road tests like this are not just for SUVs. An electric vehicle with an electric motor that produces near full torque instantly when it kicks in show excellent performance on even off-road tracks. However, because the power is transferred so quickly, they are prone to wheel slip, which is when the wheels slide. To control this, the TCS needs to be refined. Senior research engineer Lance McLaws showed his pride in his work.
“At HATCI, we tune both software and hardware for a myriad of aspects including design and regulations. There are many examples of tuning to make a car more stable over specific obstacles or off-road environments, and improving driver safety. Wheel slip control, which is part of my job, may be a secondary feature, but it’s ultimately a safety feature. It’s rewarding to think that one day a customer will be able to drive more safely because of a feature I’ve tuned.”
Hyundai/Kia has established a localized research and development (R&D) system with the completion of the Mojave Proving Ground. By having the ability to conduct various tests optimized for U.S. terrain, Hyundai Motor Group has completed a local system from product planning to design, design, and testing. This shortened the development period and enabled Hyundai Motor’s Alabama and Kia’s Georgia plants to produce new cars in a timely manner and give them the competitiveness to respond quickly to market conditions.
Matthew R. Seare, Manager of Operations of the Hyundai America Technical Center, expressed his pride in the Mojave Proving Ground through the following. “I’m always proud that I’ve been able to experience firsthand all that Hyundai and Kia have accomplished over the past 20 years, and I find it very rewarding to work with our research engineers who develop the cars. They really love cars and are passionate about making even the smallest changes to them, and it’s here at the Mojave Proving Ground that I get to work with people who have a lot of love and pride in their work.”
Hyundai/Kia’s localized R&D system in the United States, including the Mojave Proving Ground, has led to synergies through close exchanges with Namyang R&D Center, a comprehensive R&D control tower in Korea. The Group’s efforts to build great cars continue in many other areas, including the Nürburgring test center in Germany and the establishment of Hyundai Motorsport GmbH.
These efforts are paying off with strong growth in the U.S. market. Hyundai/Kia has enjoyed a new car sales share in the United States of around 10% in the 2020s, with Genesis breaking the record for best-selling car in the United States for the second consecutive year. Growth in global markets is also noteworthy. Hyundai/Kia ranked third in global sales in 2022, 12 years after its last global top-five finish in 2010. It is certain that it will retain its third place in 2023.
Hyundai and Kia’s dominance of the industry is evidenced by their awards. The dedicated E-GMP electric models, including the IONIQ 5, EV6, GV60, IONIQ 6, and EV9, have been recognized by leading media outlets around the world, winning World Car of the Year (WCOTY), North American Car of the Year (NACOTY), and European Car of the Year (ECOTY).
There are no shortcuts to making better cars. All you can do is constantly test and improve with everything you have at your disposal. Every research engineers at Hyundai Motor Group is well aware of this. Today at the Mojave Proving Ground, the sweat of our research engineers fuels the efforts made for customers.
HMG Journal Operation Team
group@hyundai.comPursuant to the Creative Commons License (CCL) 2.0, all users can copy, distribute, and transmit Information available on the Hyundai Motor Group Newsroom, or use it for exhibitions and performances. Please note, however, that all information is protected by copyright. Information users must use the information available on the Hyundai Motor Group Newsroom for strictly private/personal purposes only.
HMG Operation Policy