Michigan to Convert Bomber Plant Site to Autonomous Car Test Facility

Michigan expects to open the largest real-world autonomous vehicle test site in the U.S. next year, using a historic site to usher in the next era of transportation.

The site is the defunct Willow Run airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the home of the famed Arsenal of Democracy during World War II when Henry Ford built a huge B-24 Liberator bomber factory in 1941 with a 42,000-person workforce bolstered by Rosie the Riveter and her assembly line colleagues. General Motors later operated the mile-long factory for 50 years, using it to assemble powertrains until it was closed and the property became part of the RACER Trust that held many defunct pieces of GM after the automaker declared bankruptcy in 2008.

Earlier this month the 335-acre site was purchased by the state of Michigan for $1.2 million and leased by the American Center for Mobility to create a driverless car-testing site complete with highways, triple-decker overpasses, ramps, exits, a curved tunnel, railroad tracks, potholes, city streets, and a residential area. Being in Michigan, it also offers an opportunity to test in fog, rain, sleet, hail, cold, ice, and snow—the real-world conditions that autonomous cars will have to operate in.

 

“This will be the first full-scale facility designed to test and validate vehicles that looks like the real world,” said John Maddox, president and CEO of the American Center for Mobility, a non-profit, private-public entity.

The development of the $80 million test site is a three-phase project that started this month and will be complete by the end of 2018. The first phase, which includes 2.5 miles of highway driving, could be completed as early as next spring and will be open in December 2017, said Maddox. It is funded by $20 million in state funding and the Center is talking to private companies about further funding as it must continue to develop as well as pay back the state. The final phases will see the building of fake residential areas with cul-de-sacs, bike lanes, sidewalks, and homes with garages that vehicles must navigate in and out of. There will also be cyber-security and other testing labs that could become designated national labs, as well as office space and garages that users can lease.

While some see it as Michigan reasserting its automotive leadership, Maddox said the industry needs many test sites with a lot of capacity to aid the development and testing of connected and autonomous vehicles.

Test facilities are popping up in Michigan, California, and even Pittsburgh where Uber has a fleet of Volvos it has converted to robot taxis in the mad scramble to perfect self-driving vehicles. Michigan also has Mcity, a 32-acre mock city on the campus of the University of Michigan, that has a focus on research, teaching, and testing and which is fully booked by an industry racing to perfect self-driving technology.

The Willow Run site differs in its breadth of real-world infrastructure. The Center has worked with the Michigan Department of Transportation which plans to donate half of the nearby U.S. Highway 12. The eastbound lane of the underutilized highway will become a two-lane public road and the westbound lane will become part of the test facility, allowing autonomous cars to hit speeds up to 75 mph.

Most of the original buildings on the Willow Run site have been, or will be, demolished but some will be salvaged to use for maintenance and the Center will use GM’s utilities and storm water tanks. Importantly, there is a massive concrete slab from what was the world’s largest manufacturing facility which will reduce development costs by 50 percent or more because it will serve as a foundation for buildings for the mock city and can be easily paved over, Maddox said.

 

Maddox expects automakers, suppliers, ride-sharing companies, academia, government agencies, and regulators to use the facility to develop and validate technology and also to test infrastructure such as lights, crosswalks, and communication between cars and the world around them. It will also be used for self-certification and to help set industry standards for a world with self-driving vehicles.

Michigan is about to sign bills that will allow the testing of driverless vehicles, without a human behind the wheel, in the state. It will join states including Nevada, California, Florida, and Arizona in allowing autonomous vehicle testing on public roads. Maddox said he has received more than 40 letters of support from the industry for the test site and has been working with companies such as Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Delphi, Continental, and Bosch to help design the facility to best meet the industry’s needs.

Automakers have asked to start testing at the site as early as next month, Maddox said, a sign of the demand for the facility. The site will also be home to the Yankee Air Museum and a conference center to hold gatherings of up to 1,500 attendees.

 

 

 

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