Some may not like the idea of their car keeping a tab on driving use, but GM does, and it says that four decades worth of recorded customer data has helped it refine the upcoming 2016 Chevy Malibu.
“Data collection boxes are placed in cars in real-world driving conditions around the world,” said a GM statement. “Since 1972, these devices have accurately recorded the harshness and frequency of every jounce, bump and shudder inflicted on the car on roads in the U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia and developing markets.”
The brand’s engineers analyze the data to calculate the exact amount of damage caused by potholes and other road hazards over 150,000 miles (around 241,000km), before replicating these conditions at the GM Milford Proving Ground in Michigan to evaluate preproduction cars.
They also test the cars out in the open (the camouflaged prototypes you see in our scoop pages) logging more than 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) of driving in all sorts of environments, from Yuma, Arizona’s 107 Fahrenheit (42 Celsius) temperatures in July to Northern Canada’s -13 Fahrenheit (-25 Celsius) in January.
More extreme tests are performed at the GM Technical Center in Warren, where the Malibu was put in several hours in the Climatic Wind Tunnel that allows temperatures to be raised to 140 degrees or lowered to 40 degrees below zero (+60 C to -40 C respectively).
The new generation of the Malibu will have its world premiere on April 1 (no kidding) at the 2015 New York Auto Show before it hits US showroom later in the year.