Desert Proving Ground Yuma

32.919818°N 114.323366°W

Desert Proving Ground Yuma is a facility co-built and leased by General Motors located within the US Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. The site contains a inner facility sitting on 2,400 acres with a 24 acre campus containing 98,000 ft² of building area and also has 40 miles of roadway. One of the main reason that this site was chosen was the already imposed no fly zone which helps preventing unwanted photography of pre-production prototype

Prototype

A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

s undergoing testing. The facility is also used by the US Army for their own testing requirements.

Other such features are:

• 3.5 mile Circle Track (3 lanes)
• 1.4 mile Straight Track (2-3 lanes)
• 3.1 mile Ride Road (2-4 lanes)
• 1,000’ X 1,000’ Dynamics Pad
• Interior Noise Road
• Noise Pass-by Facility
• Misc. Grades
• 72,000 ft² Main Building
• Garage (40 Hoists)
• Office (120 Residents/Visitors)
• Product Electronics/Instrumentation Lab
• Alignment/Tire Facilities
• Transmission Build Room
• Machine/Fab Shop
• Parts Crib
• Warehouse 14,000 ft²
• Sundrella (40 hoists)
• Covered Parking
• Fuel Facility
• Car Wash
• Scale House / Ballast Station

The facility came fully online as of July 2009.

Milford Proving Ground

42.583603°N 83.684449°W

The General Motors Milford Proving Ground was the industry's first dedicated automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 testing facility when it opened in 1924. It is located in Milford, Michigan

Milford, Michigan

Milford is a village in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 6,175 at the 2010 census. The village is located within Milford Township.- Geography :...

 and covers 4,000 acres (16 km²). 4,800 staff work in its 107 buildings today. The proving ground includes the equivalent of 132 mi (212 km) of roads representative of conditions found on public roadways and other specialty surfaces for vehicle testing. Some roads are open only to drivers who have passed special performance driving training. The saying goes that each mile driven on the grounds is the same as 5 miles (8 km) in the real world.

Facilities:

• The VDTA ("Vehicle Dynamics Test Area"), also known as "Black Lake", is a 67 acres (271,139.6 m²) pad of blacktop for vehicle dynamics testing. Waterfowl have been known to try to land on this "lake" of asphalt. At the ends of the VDTA are two semicircle tracks used for accelerating vehicles up to high speed before entering the pad. A controlled low-friction area made of ceramic tiles is on one side of the pad. Another area is coated with the asphalt sealant Jennite
  Jennite
  Jennite is a calcium silicate hydrate of general chemical formula: Ca9Si6O186·8.Jennite occurs in hydrated cement paste and can be found in nature in particular conditions, e.g., as alteration mineral in metamorphosed limestone and skarn....
  
   and can be watered down to produce a low friction surface.
• The Oval Track is a 3.8 mi (6.1 km) circuit
• The Circle Track encloses the VDTA and is a 4.5 mi(7.2 km) banked circle. It has five lanes posted with speed limits increasing towards the outermost lane. The speed limit for the outermost lane is 120 MPH (192  km/h). Due to the banking, each lane can be driven at its posted speed all the way around the circle without needing to touch the steering wheel, given proper wheel alignment and tire pressures. The track surface is extremely hard "dolomite" concrete for wear resistance.
• The North/South Straightaway is 6.225 mi (10 km) miles in total length and includes two 2.5 mi (4 km) straightaways
• The East/West Straightaway is 3.1 mi (5 km) miles around and includes two 1.2 mi (1.9 km) straightaways
• "Seven Sisters" is a short course featuring seven tight curves, some level, some banked. It is one lane that can be driven in both directions, so only one car is allowed on the course at a time. This is used for testing vehicles under transient lateral acceleration loads.
• 12 Mile Road is a straight section of pavement which duplicates the historical surface texture of a section of 12 Mile Road near Detroit.
• The Ride and Handling loop encloses the Circle Track and has varied surfaces and turns.
• The Vehicle Safety & Crashworthiness Lab includes a recently added rollover test facility.

Cupuán Proving Ground

18.783056°N 102.168611°W

General Motors Proving Ground Cupuan del Rio‎ is situated between Lázaro Cárdenas and Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico. The facility opened in 2006 and features a circle track, several off-road courses, and is primarily used for testing HVAC systems.

As of 2011 the grounds are mostly abandoned, and only a local security staff remains. This is due to the volatile, potentially unsafe situation in the region and the access routes to/from Cupuán.

Cruz Alta Proving Ground, Brazil

23.1425°N 47.269444°W

General Motors Cruz Alta Proving Ground at Indaiatuba, Brazil http://www.gm.com/corporate/about/global_operations/south_america/braz.jsp

• Founded in 1974
• Proving Ground facilities
• It is the largest and most comprehensive proving ground in Latin America, and the second largest in the General Motors Corporation. It comprises the most advanced test tracks, which precisely replicate the most varied and demanding road conditions. http://www.gm.com/corporate/about/global_operations/south_america/braz.jsp
• GM do Brasil is committed to the preservation of forests and the animal species that live there. Cruz Alta Proving Ground for example, has test roads and tracks that sit amid a forest reserve of 4.6 million square meters, including 2.27 million square meters of reforested trees. The Proving Ground also features 100,000 square meters of Atlantic Forest original vegetation; 10,000 planted fruit trees and more than 1 million square meters of lawns. In addition, GM do Brasil recently partnered with IBAMA, the Brazilian Environment Protection Agency, to monitor the abundant proliferation of capybaras at that location.

Testzentrum Dudenhofen

49.992777°N 8.923055°W

Opel

Opel

Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...

 operate a proving ground near Dudenhofen

Dudenhofen

Dudenhofen is a municipality in the Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.It is situated about 3 kilometers west of Speyer.Dudenhofen is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde Dudenhofen....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 http://www.opel.de/meetopel/opelag/location/dudenhofen/index.act, opened in 1964. Facilities include a 4.8 kilometre high-speed circuit, a 900m section of Belgian pavé and a hill circuit with gradients up to 30%.

Millbrook Proving Ground

52.045219°N 0.532665°W
Millbrook Proving Ground is a vehicle testing centre located at Millbrook

Millbrook, Bedfordshire

Millbrook is a small village and civil parish near Bedford. It has a population of 130. Millbrook railway station, on the Marston Vale Line is about two miles from the village....

 in Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. One of the largest vehicle testing centres in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, it is near to the M1 motorway

M1 motorway

The M1 is a north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...

 and Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...

.

History

Modelled on the Milford Proving Ground, in Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, USA, Millbrook was constructed in the 1960s by the GM subsidiary Vauxhall

Vauxhall Motors

Vauxhall Motors is a British automotive company owned by General Motors and headquartered in Luton. It was founded in 1857 as a pump and marine engine manufacturer, began manufacturing cars in 1903 and was acquired by GM in 1925. It has been the second-largest selling car brand in the UK for...

. The two mile (3 km) five lane high speed track came into use in 1969, and construction of other sections continued into the early 1970s.

Due to the geographical needs of a full testing centre, including both hills and flat land, the traditional choice of a former RAF airfield was ruled out and many sites around the UK were surveyed before the location at Millbrook was decided upon, especially due to having the benefit of being close to Vauxhall's production site at Luton.

Construction began in 1968 and once opened acted as the testing site for many European GM models from, amongst others, the Vauxhall and Bedford

Bedford Vehicles

Bedford Vehicles, usually shortened to just Bedford, was a subsidiary of Vauxhall Motors, itself the British subsidiary of General Motors , established in 1930; and constructing commercial vehicles. Bedford Vehicles was a leading international truck manufacturer, with substantial export sales of...

 companies. In 1988 the site was transferred to a new company, Millbrook Proving Ground Ltd as part of Group Lotus

Lotus Cars

Lotus Cars is a British manufacturer of sports and racing cars based at the former site of RAF Hethel, a World War II airfield in Norfolk. The company designs and builds race and production automobiles of light weight and fine handling characteristics...

 and began to offer its facilities as well to non-GM companies. With the sale of Lotus in 1993 Millbrook was transferred to GM Holdings UK Ltd as an independently managed company and began to diversify into all aspects of vehicle testing including emission

Exhaust gas

Exhaust gas or flue gas is emitted as a result of the combustion of fuels such as natural gas, gasoline/petrol, diesel fuel, fuel oil or coal. According to the type of engine, it is discharged into the atmosphere through an exhaust pipe, flue gas stack or propelling nozzle.It often disperses...

 control.

Facilities:

The centre provides vehicle test and development facilities including:

• Vehicle and system assessment
• Powertrain development
• Safety testing.

These are staffed by engineering teams who work with manufacturers on their test and development programmes.

Millbrook has a wide range of types of test tracks. The most prominent are the:

• Hill Route - divided into three sections or loops which contain progressively steeper gradients and tighter corners. Sometimes seen in motoring television programmes, for example Top Gear
  Top Gear (current format)
  Top Gear is a British television series about motor vehicles, primarily cars. It began in 1977 as a conventional motoring magazine show. Over time, and especially since a relaunch in 2002, it has developed a quirky, humorous style...
  
  , particularly the "ski-jump" where it is very easy for vehicles to become airborne. Also used for the James Bond
  James Bond
  James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
  
   film Casino Royale
  Casino Royale (2006 film)
  Casino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond...
  
  .
• Outer and Inner Handling (or City Course) circuits - extremely technical twisty circuits used for extreme testing of vehicle handling characteristics.
• High Speed Bowl - a two mile (3 km) circular banked circuit used for higher speed testing.

The proving ground maintains a high standard of security and secrecy to protect the commercial interests of its customers. Public access is not generally permitted and the facility is hidden from view by belts of trees. Limited supervised access to the facilities is available through some driver training organizations.

Millbrook has been the site of many challenges featured in BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's Top Gear, such as the Non-Porsche Coupé challenge in Series 6 (using the Hill Route, dubbed the "Alpine Circuit" by the presenters), the Convertible People Carrier challenge in Series 8 (using the High Speed bowl), the British Leyland challenge in Series 10 (using the Skid Pan and one of the Handling Circuits) and the "Lorryist" challenge in Series 12 (using the Skid Pan, the Hill Route and the High Speed Bowl).

Lang Lang Proving Ground

38.353889°N 145.590833°W

The Holden Lang Lang Proving Ground is a vehicle testing facility located at Lang Lang

Lang Lang, Victoria

Lang Lang is a town in Victoria, Australia, 73 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Cardinia...

 in Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, approximately 90 km south-east of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

.

It was opened in 1957 by GM-Holden

Holden

GM Holden Ltd is an automaker that operates in Australia, based in Port Melbourne, Victoria. The company was founded in 1856 as a saddlery manufacturer. In 1908 it moved into the automotive field, before becoming a subsidiary of the U.S.-based General Motors in 1931...

 and has been used to test every Holden model from the Holden FC

Holden FC

The Holden FC series is a range of motor vehicles which was produced by General Motors–Holden's in Australia from 1958 to 1960. Introduced on 6 May 1958, the FC is a facelifted and improved version of the Holden FE series, which it replaced.- Model range :...

 onwards. It is a dedicated 877-hectare site with 44 kilometres of road systems, including a 4.7 km 4 lane circular track (speed bowl), 5.5 km ride and handling course, a 1.8 km noise road and 98m diameter skid pan. It is also equipped with an Emissions Laboratory and Safety Test Facility with crash barrier and hyge sled.http://autospeed.com/cms/A_0791/article.html

Mezcala Proving Ground

GM's proposed facility at Mezcala, Mexico was terminated in the planning phase due to breakdown in land negotiations. The facility was to take over Desert Proving Ground tasks when GM announced DPG's closing in 2000. DPG is still operating as of late 2008. Soon to be closed and replaced with the new facility in Yuma, Arizona.

Desert (Mesa) Proving Ground

33.324265°N 111.620192°W

GM Desert Proving Ground in Mesa, Arizona

Mesa, Arizona

According to the 2010 Census, the racial composition of Mesa was as follows:* White: 77.1% * Hispanic or Latino : 26.54%* Black or African American: 3.5%* Two or more races: 3.4%* Native American: 2.4%...

 was a General Motors facility for the testing of HVAC, propulsion, and various automotive systems in a harsh climate. This facility is now closed is was replaced by a new facility in Yuma, Arizona

Yuma, Arizona

Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....

.