[Auto] How Automakers Continue Nürburgring Testing through COVID-19 Lockdown

[The GodFather]

 

 

While much of the global auto industry has been forced to shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, some of it is still working hard—especially the engineers developing new models. We were intrigued to see pictures and videos from prototype test sessions at the Nürburgring—while most of Germany is under lockdown conditions—so we decided to take a closer look at the challenges of vehicle engineering in the age of COVID-19.

 

Public activities at the Nürburgring have been suspended, with forthcoming events either cancelled or postponed. The Nordschliefe 24 Hour race has been pushed back from May to September. And Rock Am Ring, one of Germany’s largest outdoor music festivals and an event that normally features a lineup replete with hair metal acts has been axed for 2020.

 

Yet the "industry pool" test sessions that run throughout much of the year, where participating automakers send prototypes out for development work, have continued throughout lockdown, even as pretty much every European car factory has been shut down. For a sense of the number of cars still lapping the 12.9-mile circuit, check out the video below from last week.

 

Other large European test sites are still partially open, including the Millbrook proving ground in the U.K. and Idiada in Spain, but none is as important to the continent’s automakers as the Nordschliefe.

Automaker Testing
 

As you would expect, the need to maintain isolation has changed procedures somewhat.

“As all the OEMs using the track have their own facilities there is no interaction between engineers from different areas and companies,” Phil Talboy, Jaguar Land Rover’s European engineering operations manager told C/D. Talboy is coordinating the company’s ongoing development work from Germany despite having just become a father for the first time. “We are operating with a reduced team having split them into two groups, who have no interaction with each other, and only people who need to physically work on or drive the vehicles are in the facility. We have no visiting engineers and are delivering a reduced amount of testing using the local team only as well as having strict hygiene rules in place.”

 

Talboy says that data acquired through testing is being uploaded to servers so it can be reviewed and worked on remotely, while video conferencing allowing analysis that would normally take place at JLR’s test facility to be done from the U.K.

It’s a similar story for other automakers, all of which are using social distancing in their own facilities—normally ensuring a two meter separation between employees and disinfecting cars between different occupants. They are also ensuring that drivers won’t need to leave their cars while at the Nürburgring, which is some distance from the various OEM workshops.

 

We’re told that access cards are being held up so they can be scanned through windows and that automakers are requiring employees to use disposable gloves before using the pumps at local gas stations.

 

“Our first priority is the wellbeing of every colleague within the Porsche family during these times,” a Porsche spokesperson told C/D. “Any engineering work is conducted on a case-by-case basis, and only if the local authorities allow it and if the CDC guidelines can be strictly enforced.”

 

To that end, Porsche’s development engineers are often bringing cars to and from Stuttgart in a single day—a 410-mile round trip—rather than staying overnight at the Nürburgring. Accommodation is scare anyway, with most of the local hotels and restaurants shut down.