How do car manufacturers test new car weather safety features?
All vehicles undergo extensive testing by the manufacturer and government regulatory agencies. Private companies or government agencies may also be contracted to perform tests on vehicles. If, for example, you wanted to test the vehicle’s braking performance on unfavourable road conditions, the required conditions would be duplicated under test conditions. This may require testing an instrumented sample vehicle in controlled conditions out of doors on a test track or simulating the test condition in an environmental chamber. When testing out of doors, you may have to wait for the ideal temperature and weather conditions. Controlled ice condiitions can be duplicated by spraying water on the road surface and snow can be created using the same snow-making equipment used on ski hills. Sunlight cannot be controlled, except through scheduling. Items such as windshield wipers and window de-icing systems, for example, are more easily tested in an environmental test chamber, since the vehicle d
