Horiba MIRA has benefitted greatly from £29m (US$38m) of investment since it joined the Horiba Group one year ago, which has enabled significant growth and an increase in staff.
To date the company has also made upgrades to a number of its existing facilities, including its crash test equipment and wind tunnels, and new additions to the proving ground, including the Advanced Emissions Test Centre (AETC), which is due for completion in early 2017.
The AETC, which represents a total of £6m (US$7.8m) of investment, will provide emissions testing capabilities for global compliance, including Euro 6 and the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure, and incorporate RDE testing capabilities.
Horiba MIRA has also been able to complete phase one of its Technology Park development on-site in Nuneaton, UK and pave the way for phase two, which is now well under construction.
Engineering director Nick Fell was welcomed to the team this year and there are plans to recruit dozens of additional staff in 2016, from apprentices through to senior management across many areas of the business including its functional safety, future transport technology, cyber security, connected and autonomous vehicles and emissions teams.
Meanwhile the proving ground has also had a number of its RDE routes approved by the Dutch approval authority RDW in a UK first.
In addition, the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), the UK vehicle Type Approval authority, has verified that the RDE routes proposed by Horiba MIRA meet the requirements of the regulation and are therefore happy for these routes to be used for RDE certification testing.
The approved RDE test routes – which satisfy the requirements for normal boundary conditions – are the first RDW approved routes within the UK, each offering unique and mandatory conditions that will enable engineers to carry out compulsory emissions testing ahead of a 2017 change in legislation. Other RDW approved routes exist in both the Netherlands and in Germany.
July 26, 2016