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The Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises inaugurated NATRAX- the High Speed Track(HST) in Indore which is the longest such track in Asia.
About NATRAX(National Automotive Test Tracks)
- NATRAX, developed in an area of 1000 acres of land , is a one stop solution for all sorts of high speed performance tests for widest categories of vehicles from 2 wheelers to heavy tractor trailers.
- It is a 11.3 km High Speed Track.
- HST is used for measuring the maximum speed capability of high-end cars like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla and so forth which cannot be measured on any of the Indian test track.
- It can cater to the widest category of vehicles; say from two wheelers to the heaviest tractor trailers.
- Vehicle can achieve max speed of 375 Kmph on curves with steering control and it has less banking on ovals making it also one of the safest test track globally.
- Moreover, the track benefits from the zero percent longitudinal slope that basically helps in improving the accuracy of the measurement of the performance of vehicle.
- Being centrally located in Madhya Pradesh, it is accessible to most of the major OEMs.
- Foreign OEMs(original equipment manufacturers) will be looking at NATRAX HST for the development of prototype cars for Indian conditions .
- At present, foreign OEMs go to their respective high speed track abroad for high speed test requirements.
- The project NATRAX is being built under NATRiP (National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project) of the Heavy Industries Ministry.
- NATRAX happens to be one of the automotive testing and certification centres in the country.
Facilities at NATRAX
The NATRAX centre has multiple test capabilities like measurements of maximum speed, acceleration, constant speed fuel consumption, emission tests through real road driving simulation, high speed handling and stability evaluation during manoeuvred such as lane change, high speed durability testing, etc. and is a Centre of excellence for Vehicle Dynamics.
National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP)
- It is a fully Government of India funded project with a total project cost of Rs. 3727.30 crore.
- This is the largest and one of the most significant initiatives in Automotive sector so far.
- The project aims at creating core global competencies in automotive sector in India by facilitating seamless integration of Indian Automotive industry with the world, through setting up state-of-the-art, four green field automotive testing, homologation and R&D infrastructure facilities and up-gradation of two existing facilities with new technology and equipment.
- The four new centers that have been setup are:
- International Center For Automotive Technology (iCAT) at Manesar (Haryana) in northern India.
- Global Automotive Research Center (GARC) at Oragadam near Chennai (Tamil Nadu) in southern India.
- National Automotive Test Tracks (NATRAX) at Pithampur near Indore (Madhya Pradesh) in central India.
- National Institute Of Automotive Inspection, Maintenance & Training (NIAIMT) at Silchar (Assam) in northeast India.
The two existing facilities ‘Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI-Pune) and Vehicle Research & Development Establishment (VRDE – Ahmednagar)’ have been upgraded with new technologies.
