SAIC opens China's largest winter proving ground

Shanghai. February 18 (Gasgoo.com) - Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) announced the completion of its winter proving ground, China's largest winter testing facility in northeastern city of Manchuria (or Manzhili in Chinese Pinyin) in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region yesterday.

According to SAIC's announcement, the proving ground in Manchuria is seated between 48 degrees and 49 degrees North Latitude with an average annual temperature at minus1°C(30.2°F). The minimum winter temperature can be as low as minus 40°C (-40°F).

"The geographical and climatic conditions offers a prefect cold-weather vehicle testing environment and our R&D workers can make further studies on problems associated with extremely cold weather conditions," said Gao Weimin, president of SAIC Motor Technical Center. "That's why we prefer Manchuria in Inner Mongolia to Heihe in Heilongjiang province," he explained.

Heihe in Heilongjiang province also has long winter months and has attracted many Chinese automakers to set up their winter proving grounds. But average temperature in Manchuria is 5°C to 10°C lower than that of Heihe.

The test facilities include a 15km-long durability road, an 11km-long high speed banked oval track, a 3km-long road suitable for ABS system testing and a vast vehicle dynamics area.

Roewe 550, SAIC's second sedan under the self-developed Roewe brand will take a 75-day 10,000km test in the newly-established Manchuria testing center, the company said.