New Zealand-Based Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds aims to provide services around winter testing to Indian vehicle manufacturers and tyre companies.

The company, also the only proving grounds facility in the southern hemisphere, conducts these tests at its facility during the June-August period, which is a winter season there. This is the time when summer prevails in the northern hemisphere.

Speaking to Autocar Professional at the Automotive Testing Expo in Chennai earlier this month, Shaun Gilbertson, general manager, SHPG, New Zealand, said: “Conventionally, most carmakers around the globe are understood to go to snow tracks located in Sweden, North America and other countries – all situated in the northern hemisphere – around December-January. After taking in all the inputs and using them in further developing their vehicles and tyres, they have to wait for 12 months to test them again on snow. This is where they can use the facilities at SHPG, which can help them in speeding up the product development cycle.”

According to Gilbertson, 60 percent of SHPG’s business comes from automobiles and the remaining 40 percent from tyre manufacturing companies.

“We have all the major OEMs from China, Japan, North America and Europe coming to SHPG and test their upcoming projects. Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) from India has been there in the past and we are hoping that they will come again in the upcoming season. Among Indian tyre companies, JK Tyre, Apollo Tyres and Ceat Tyres have also been there. We provide comprehensive, subjective and quantitative tyre testing, benchmarking and reporting service in line with procedural requirement of ISO, SAE, ETRTO (European) and ASTM (American) standards,” he added.

The company provides snow performance testing (C1, C2, C3), wet grip asphalt braking (C1 and C2) and tyre spin traction performance (C1, C2). “We can have 16 companies testing simultaneously at one time, each having an individual workshop and snow track with them. We also provide wind tunnels, cold chambers and also various types of road conditions,” said Gilbertson.