Almost 10 years after the ceremonial opening of the Development and Testing Center (EVZ) in Wörth am Rhein, Germany, Mercedes‑Benz Trucks will invest about another 50 million euros (Rs 394 crore) in the centre of competence for development work on commercial vehicles.

With the symbolic ground-breaking for the expansion of the local development activities on June 15, Prof Dr Uwe Baake, Head of Product Development Mercedes‑Benz Trucks, Gerald Jank, Head of Mercedes-Benz Trucks Operations, Dr Ingo Ettischer, Head of Mercedes-Benz Wörth Plant, and Thomas Zwick, Chairman of the Works Council of the Mercedes-Benz Wörth Plant, together with Dr Volker Wissing, Minister for Economics, Transportation, Agriculture and Viticulture of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Dr Fritz Brechtel, District Administrator of the Germersheim district, and Dr Dennis Nitsche, Mayor of Wörth, celebrated the official start of construction.

An additional office and workshop building, a new building housing test benches, as well as parking for test vehicles will be built on the premises of the development grounds in Wörth by 2020. At present, some 200 employees from Vehicle Testing and related test units are working in the EVZ. Once the expansion is completed, it is expected that about 350 employees will be working there.

The Development and Testing Center (EVZ) is a centre of competence for the development work of Mercedes-Benz Trucks and plays an important role on the road to connected, automated and electric driving. It has numerous rough-road tracks and different roadway profiles that replicate the roads of this world. In this way, the facility is able to provide the same conditions for the test vehicles as are found in South America, South Korea, Africa and also in Europe. Furthermore, the EVZ comprises the break-in track with inclinations of up to 49 percent, which can be used for functional testing. In addition, the EVZ offers office, workshop and service spaces, which also house the test benches for truck component testing.