Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Prakash Javdekar on Tuesday inaugurated Asia’s longest high-speed test track located in Pithampur, Indore. The National Automotive Test Tracks (NATRAX) facility, developed in an area of 1,000 acres of land, measures 11.3 km in length and will facilitate automotive and component testing for automobile companies. The track will also be used for measuring the maximum speed capabilities of high-end cars and other categories of vehicles.
NATRAX is located only 50 km away from Indore, the financial capital of Madhya Pradesh.
Speaking at the e-inauguration, Javadekar stated that India is destined to become a hub of automobiles, manufacturing, and spare parts. The Minister said, we are fast moving towards an ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ and all-round efforts are being made in this direction.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Arjun Ram Meghwal, said, the government is promoting manufacturing and automobile industry as it will help empowering the nation at a larger scale.
The NATRAX centre has multiple test capabilities like measurements of maximum speed, acceleration, constant speed fuel consumption, emission tests through real road driving simulation, high speed handling and stability evaluation during manoeuvred such as lane change, high speed durability testing, etc. and is a Centre of excellence for Vehicle Dynamics.
Vehicles can achieve a max speed of 375 Kmph on curves with steering control and it has less banking on ovals making it also one of the safest test tracks globally.
The large size of this track enables the Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to perform a wide variety of tests in one track itself like coast down tests, brake tests, constant speed fuel consumption test, speedometer calibration, noise, and vibration measurement, and mileage accumulation among others.
HST is used for measuring the maximum speed capability of high-end cars like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla and so forth which cannot be measured on any of the Indian test tracks. Being centrally located in Madhya Pradesh, it is accessible to most of the major OEMs. Foreign OEMs will be looking at NATRAX HST for the development of prototype cars for Indian conditions. At present, foreign OEMs go to their respective high speed track abroad for high speed test requirements.
