Automotive: Morocco Hosts 1st Development & Test Center in Africa

FEV, German engineering provider in the automotive industry, and French group UTAC, leader in car testing and homologation, have opened in Moroccan Atlas mountain city of Oued Zem Africa’s first testing center.
“The launch of the first test center on African soil is an important strategic milestone for FEV,” said Stefan Pischinger, CEO of FEV Group.

“Since 2018, we have been expanding our presence in Morocco and are very proud, now being able to provide our customers with a unique package of state-of-the-art development, testing and homologation services on the doorstep of Europe”, he added.

“With this test center, UTAC and FEV offer their customers world-class test facilities in an exceptional environment,” said Connor McCormack, CEO of UTAC.
The state-of-the-art facility in Oued Zem is located at an altitude of 850 meters in Morocco’s Atlas foothills. The site covers a total area of 500 hectares and comprises an extensive, completely newly built test area for passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

It allows a wide variety of test drives on a total of 14 sections and individual tracks. The centerpiece is a four-kilometer roll-out track in accordance with EU and Japanese specifications, which is unique in the world under these favorable conditions.

Test sections for high-speed driving, brake testing and acoustic testing as well as incline hills and bad road sections, an ISO 10844 acoustic track, urban environment, and other test tracks complete the portfolio.
The warm and dry climate of Oued Zem allows for almost year-round test operation. The new location is also an ideal starting point for long-distance tests in the Atlas Mountains, which are only 70 km away.
The newly built test center offers customers a full range of test rigs for powertrain development (electric, hybrid and vehicles with combustion engines), RDE cycles, endurance and reliability testing, dynamics, acoustics, and climate testing.

It also houses spacious offices, conference and seminar rooms, presentation areas, workshop sites for vehicle preparation and a hotel built especially for the guests of the test center with restaurants, spa and leisure.