Going the Distance

This article discusses a Turkish auto manufacturer that had been marketing its heavy commercial vehicle for years, but new emissions requirements were looming. The rules came from the European Parliament in Brussels. Turkey, which is not part of the European Union, has been pursuing membership for decades and many nearby countries belong, so the rules could not be ignored. The company decided to redesign its truck. The testing company, LMS International, crunched numbers and devised a schedule of track driving that would accelerate fatigue-inducing events a hundredfold. LMS engineers began by getting a snapshot of what the roads do to trucks in Turkey. LMS will not disclose details of the final test schedule, but according to the project manager on this job, Michael Kienert, the truck traveled a total of 10,000 km over the track in eight weeks. The team of engineers inspected it at regular intervals during the test.