Volvo Trucks North America completed structural upgrades to its test track facility in Dublin, Va., the automaker announced Aug. 24.
The Volvo Trucks Customer Center had the size of its custom-designed course tripled to 3 miles as part of the renovations. The track also includes new terrain and structural upgrades. Volvo noted that the changes provide customers with a fully immersive driving experience.
“The Volvo Customer Center illustrates further investment in Volvo Trucks’ footprint in North America where customers can demo entire product lines of our new battery-electric truck models and vocational vehicles while being safely guided by our team of skilled CDL drivers,” said Rob Simpson, director of the Volvo Trucks Customer Center.
Volvo also expressed interest in using the track to demonstrate its safety features. The Volvo Dynamic Steering system, for example, is available on most of its truck models and can be demonstrated on the course so that customers can better understand how the system handles different conditions and terrain.
“VDS is transforming how drivers operate by eliminating much of the work behind the wheel while reducing strain for better comfort and enabling safer and easier steering,” Simpson said. “Customers can test all the safety and driver comfort features on the customer experience track designed with new S-curves and concrete curb drops that simulate a real-world truck driving experience.”
The Volvo Trucks Customer Center recently completed significant structural upgrades to the facility’s customer experience track in Dublin, Va. (Volvo Trucks North America)
The VDS system allows drivers to maintain control when encountering uneven roads, ditches and tire blowouts. Volvo said the expanded track includes two super elevations that demonstrate radius and grade changes, a 1-mile straightaway, concrete curbs, steeper grade changes and tighter S-curves so that customers can properly pilot the trucks.
“The driver drives into the curb so that the left tire drops into that 8-inch ditch and then immediately steers to the right to come back onto the road surface,” Simpson said. “Without VDS, the steering wheel would be jerked hard to the left, and the driver would fight to maintain control. The steering system, which was designed to further bolster the safety of our trucks, dampens that violent input so that the driver doesn’t have to deal with that hard pull.”
