Tested to the limit

300 sensors record temperatures, pressures and the flow rates of coolants, among other things, during the test drives.

If low temperatures are what you are looking for, you’ll be sure to find them in wintry northern Sweden. At the Arctic Circle, temperatures are around minus 40 degrees and colder – an extreme challenge for both people and technology. That was just the right environment for the new Lion’s City E electric bus from MAN to prove its toughness in snow and ice.

The fleet of test vehicles – including 26 trucks and eight buses, of which two were electric – was accompanied by a team of test drivers and technicians for winter testing in northern Sweden. Taking advantage of the snowy landscape, they evaluated the behaviour of the buses when driving on snow and ice, as well as their heating, cooling and air conditioning systems. Headlights and windscreen wipers also got to see if they were up to the challenge of Scandinavian quantities of snow. It was no mean feat for the MAN test drivers at the wheel: they had to safely manoeuvre the vehicles on icy roads and with terrible visibility.

284 kilometres were covered by the MAN Lion’s City E in 16 hours and at more than 35 degrees.

This type of testing is essential and something that MAN has been conducting for more than 30 years, because weather conditions have a significant influence on control of a vehicle as well as on the operation of vehicle systems such as air conditioning, batteries or electronics. That’s why the test vehicles are packed with measuring technology: more than 300 sensors record temperatures, pressure or coolant flow rates. Other devices record the data traffic between the control units of the Lion’s City E. Engineers can optimise thousands of parameters, even during the drive, to perfect the vehicle’s performance. They always have one goal: to make the new vehicle ready for series production and to continually improve the technology even after production has started.