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Daily News Analysis

NATRAX- the High Speed Track(HST) in Indore

30th June, 2021 Economy

GS PAPER III: Indian Economy and issues relating to Planning, Mobilization of Resources, Growth, Development and Employment.

Context: India gets Asia’s longest and world’s fifth longest High Speed Track for automobiles.

More about NATRAX:

  • Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises inaugurated NATRAX- the High Speed Track(HST) in Indore, which is the longest such track in Asia.
  • NATRAX, developed in an area of 1000 acres of land, is a one stop solution for all sorts of high speed performance tests for widest categories of vehicles from 2 wheelers to heavy tractor trailers.
  • The world class 11.3 km High Speed Track, is an to fulfil Prime Minister’s dream of ensuring that India becomes a hub of auto manufacturing.
  • The NATRAX centre has multiple test capabilities like measurements of maximum speed, acceleration, constant speed fuel consumption, emission tests through real road driving simulation, high speed handling and stability evaluation during manoeuvred such as lane change, high speed durability testing, etc. and is a Centre of excellence for Vehicle Dynamics.
  • HST is used for measuring the maximum speed capability of high-end cars like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla and so forth which cannot be measured on any of the Indian test tracks.
  • Being centrally located in Madhya Pradesh, it is accessible to most of the major OEMs.
  • Foreign OEMs will be looking at NATRAX HST for the development of prototype cars for Indian conditions .
  • At present, foreign OEMs go to their respective high speed track abroad for high speed test requirements.
  • It is one stop solution for all sorts of high speed performance tests, being one of the largest in the world.
  • It can cater to widest category of vehicles; say from two wheelers to the heaviest tractor trailers.
  • Vehicle can achieve max speed of 375 Kmph on curves with steering control and it has less banking on ovals making it also one of the safest test track globally.

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1731122