Jaguar Land Rover Prepares For The Future With New Vehicle Testing Center

Developing a new car is an exhaustive process. There's plenty to be done, from extreme weather evaluations to crash testing and more. But as the automotive world changes and electric vehicles become more commonplace, automakers are having to adapt their testing regimes to ensure future vehicles stand up to things such as electrical and radio interference.

In preparation for this, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced a new testing facility that will ensure future vehicles meet quality standards for electronics and connectivity. The Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) laboratory boats two anechoic chambers. The first is an electrically controlled rolling road that allows company engineers to evaluate vehicles at speed and assess the performance of key components, like electric motors and batteries.

However, the EMC facility also tests important safety features such as adaptive cruise control and blind spot monitoring, as well as convenience and infotainment items like Bluetooth, GPS, wireless charging, and Wi-Fi. The laboratory is already in use; the brand new Range Rover Sport was the first vehicle to be assessed at the Gaydon-based facility.

For those who aren't sure what Electromagnetic Compatibility testing is, JLR explains that it allows for the testing of a vehicle's electrical equipment, to ensure it works correctly in the electromagnetic environment. "It works by limiting the unintentional generation, propagation, and reception of electromagnetic energy to reduce the risk of unwanted effects such as electromagnetic interference."

This new form of vehicle testing is important for the future, especially as autonomous driving tech and OTA updates become more mainstream.

JLR's Peter Phillips said, "the importance of testing our vehicles for electromagnetic compatibility cannot be underestimated. Opening this new testing facility is an important step forward for the business and it will play a crucial role in helping us deliver quality, legal, and customer satisfaction."

It's not the first time we've seen this sort of testing employed on a high-tech luxury vehicle. Prior to the unveiling of the BMW i7, the German automaker gave us a glimpse into the intense development testing it put the electric sedan through. Aside from acoustic and wind tunnel testing, the i7 was also exposed to electromagnetic fields to test the electrical systems.