Following an investment of around €18 million, ZF has opened its expanded Erich Reinecke test track in Jeversen, Germany, including a new 3.6km oval circuit with a range of curves and straight sections to simulate real-life highway driving conditions. The track significantly advances ZF’s testing capabilities, and will be used to support the development of advanced technologies including lane departure systems, traffic jam assistants and highway pilots up to autonomous driving – technologies being further developed following the company’s recent acquisition of Wabco.
“This unique test track… offers exactly those extensive dynamic test possibilities which are necessary to fully exploit the growth opportunities for our company in the commercial vehicle segment,” said Wilhelm Rehm, member of the board at ZF Friedrichshafen AG.
The track is named after Erich Reinecke, a former Wabco VP of group engineering, who died in 2008. During his career, Reinecke played a major role in the development and market launch of several electronic control systems for commercial vehicles.
“The expanded and modernised test track offers us the necessary capacity to significantly expand the development and testing of cutting-edge technologies,” added Dr Christian Brenneke, SVP of product engineering with ZF’s Commercial Vehicle Control Systems Division. “As we increasingly focus on autonomous, networked and electrified vehicles, the growing complexity of the systems we develop requires ever more advanced test and validation capacities. The extension of our test track enables us to test innovative driver assistance systems up to fully automated driving and mobility concepts.”
