Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI) held a celebration event earlier this week in honor of 20 successful years of quality and performance testing at its California Proving Ground (CPG) in California City, Calif. The $80 million facility, which opened in 2005, has seen more than 5,000 Hyundai Motor, Kia, and Genesis vehicles undergo rigorous testing on a variety of roads and in extreme conditions to ensure their quality, durability, reliability, and safety.

“The Hyundai Motor Group has made exceptional progress over the past 20 years, thanks in part to our California Proving Ground and the outstanding work of our team there,” said Euisun Chung, Executive Chair, Hyundai Motor Group. “As we look to the future, we must focus on pioneering technologies such as AI, robotics, Software Defined Vehicles, electrification, and hydrogen technology. Facilities like the California Proving Ground will be critical to that innovation and will help shape the next 20 years of Hyundai Motor Group, turning challenges into opportunities and setbacks into successes.”

Situated in the middle of the Mojave Desert, the HATCI CPG is a 4,500-acre facility that serves as the center for Hyundai Motor, Kia, and Genesis vehicle evaluation operations in North America. The grounds include a 6.4-mile oval track, 2-million square-foot Vehicle Dynamics Area (VDA), 2.75-mile winding road track, a 3.3-mile hill road, off-road evaluation loops, and various specially surfaced roads exactingly constructed to replicate U.S. highways.

Team members at the facility perform full vehicle evaluation, durability, and development testing. Vehicle development operations include activities ranging from ride and handling evaluations to Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) tests and Heat Protection assessments. The CPG also features three fully equipped garages and a material-weathering facility to accelerate and assess UV degradation.

The CPG is one of many HATCI facilities in the United States dedicated to design, technology and engineering of Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) vehicles. HATCI supports new model development for HMG’s North American operations and global programs from dedicated engineering facilities and support staff at affiliate sites located throughout the United States, including:

• HATCI HQ (Superior Township, MI) – 220,000-square-foot state-of-the-art engineering and technology center
• Chino Lab (Chino, CA) – specialized research facility focused on powertrain performance tuning, with a special emphasis on eco vehicle applications.
• Hyundai America Design & Engineering Center (Irvine, CA) – 90,000 square-foot, design and technical center fitted with the world’s most advanced visualization, graphics and clay modeling technologies.
• North America Quality Center – NAQC (Chino, CA) – center dedicated to quality activities spanning from early prototype, benchmarking activities and pre-production durability.
• CRADLE (Silicon Valley, CA) – home to acceleration programs and next-generation technologies including mobility, electrification, connectivity, and robotics.

Hyundai Motor Group directly or indirectly employs more than 570,000 people in the United States and has invested over $20.5 billion in the country since 2002.

SOURCE: Hyundai Motor Group