WINTER TESTING in NEW ZEALAND -June July August.
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE PROVING GROUND Ltd.

SHPG covers 400ha of privately owned snow fields in the South Island of New Zealand. The proving ground covers over 30km of compacted snow and ice test tracks, serviced by 12 stand alone test facilities. A variety of natural and artificial cold climate test services are available, from sub zero snow and ice to dry split mu sealed surfaces, gradients and high speed snow flats. Test conditions are optimal from late June to late August. SHPG also offers unsealed roads, off road and 4WD testing and sealed road confirmation routes.

With the auto motive OEM and aftermarket industries experiencing increasing pressures from reducing product development lead times, rapidly advancing technologies and ever stringent regulations, counter seasonal winter testing in the Southern Hemisphere has become an increasingly important industry resource.

As the automotive industry rapidly pursues sustainable mobility and accelerates towards electrification & hybridization the demand for fast tracked HEV, PHEV & EV research and development has never been stronger. SHPG has a long and established history of partnering OEM cold climate development of hybrid, electric and alternate mobility technologies. Since the mid 90’s SHPG has been involved in the global development of HEV & EV technologies. Energy storage, consumption and control pose significant and unique technical challenges in cold and extreme climates. Peak system demands in low friction cold climates present significant technical challenge and complexity for HEV & EV systems tuning. High voltage demands at low temperature efficiencies require careful power management, delivery and consumption while low friction surfaces require complex passive safety system control development and tuning. SHPG knows these challenges well and has tailored facilities, infrastructure and know how to support the challenges and complexities of these emerging technologies.

SHPG also offers tyre/vehicle evaluation services. Our staff are experienced engineer-evaluators with the instrumentation and knowledge to provide you with quality, unbiased subjective and objective evaluation data. Using the latest GPS and accelerometer technologies we can provide the objective data you require along with the subjective commentary necessary to define the dynamic characteristics of your winter test procedures. We have experience with the maneuvers, rating scales, and objective tests required by many OEMs, and we can custom tailor tests to your requirements by working with you to design tests to fit your needs from defining surface and environmental constraints to developing customer based report formats. Let us assist your product development process either as an adjunct to your team or as an independent test provider.