China starts construction of first intelligent-connected testing base in Chongqing

China's first large-scale comprehensive intelligent-connected vehicle testing base formally started construction on January 18. This base, located in Chongqing Shuangqiao Economic & Technological Development District, is invested and built by China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd (CAERI) and planned by National Motor Vehicle Quality Supervision and Inspection Center (Chongqing) (MVIC).

According to CAERI, this testing base will cover a planned area of around 3500 mu (over 2.3 million square meters). It will contain plentiful supporting facilities that are designed for conventional vehicle development. Meanwhile, it can simulate various operating modes and segmentation scenarios that PVs and CVs may meet when they are on different types of roads, such as highway, urban expressway, cross-country path and country road. Besides, the intelligent vehicle data base are planned to be established under this project. Once the project is completed, it will be accessible for all intelligent vehicle manufacturers and core component production enterprises in Chongqing.

In the meantime, the first phase of this project is planned to be put into operation this year. With an area of around 860 mu (around 573 thousand square meters), it will construct the office area, testing roads with total length of over 50km as well as over one hundred types of testing scenarios. After the first phase of the project is finished, it will own China’s first ADAS testing road. In addition, since it can perform more than 80% of functions that conventional vehicle testing bases are usually equipped with, it will save much land resources for local government and alleviate the manufacturers’ tension from space shortage.

In accordance with the 13th Five-Year Plan of Chongqing, the city plans to achieve an annual vehicle production volume of 5 million units by the end of 2020. The completion of this project will not only help Chongqing and other areas in China further improve their auto testing level and R&D abilities, but also help promote the structural adjustment of China’s auto industry.