By Rob

Much like we did earlier this summer in Germany, we are finding opportunities to invite some folks to do extensive test drives evaluations with us. Here's a look at some recent reports.

Posted by Editor at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

By Liz

Who says engineers can't have a little fun? A bunch of us got together and took some cars to the Woodward Dream Cruise. As you may know, the Cruise is the world's largest gathering of cars and car lovers, on Michigan's famed Woodward Avenue. With hundreds of thousands of people and countless cars, the Cruise day itself is more than a little congested. That doesn't work real well for us. So we got about 30 cars together on one of the evenings right before the "official" Cruise and did a little driving and had some fun. Even on these nights preceding the Cruise, there's a pretty good crowd and all kinds of interesting cars, both old and new.

What made this a bit more special was the fact that we had a bit of cause for celebration. The initial 2008 cars have started shipping to Cadillac dealerships in the U.S. and Canada. With that milestone fresh in our minds, it made for a fun night.

Posted by Editor at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

By Liz

If you follow the car business at all, you’ve probably seen reports of the top quality measurements and surveys such as J.D. Power & Associates and others. This is serious business. Everyone has their own “expert” opinion on what cars possess higher quality than others. And the quality reputation of particular brands and vehicles is of absolutely vital importance.

But there are very, very few third-party methods for actually measuring quality.

So, as we’re developing a new car and getting ready to produce it for consumers, how do we know how we’re doing in terms of quality? We measure it just like the researchers and surveyors do. We have some team members who do their own miniature quality surveys, on a nearly constant basis, before, during and after we start production. These guys are quality analysts, who do this for a living. They accumulate 1,000 miles very quickly via round-the-clock driving at Milford. Then they get together and “audit” the cars, comprehensively looking at every aspect. We generate reports and “scores” that correlate to the industry’s top quality measurements. The lower the score, the better. As the program moves along, we keep doing these mini-quality surveys constantly. The issues they find come to the team and me as top priorities. And those numbers either get much lower as time goes on, or … well, you might say we get to go to the principal’s office. It does create a little pressure.

Even if we come through one of these studies looking good, the next one looms and always has a tougher target to reach. But that’s the best way to get better and know that the program can move on to the next phase.

Next stop, Cadillac dealerships.

Posted by Editor at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By Rob

This is the Aachen Head. Not a new children’s toy. He is an important guy on our team, though he doesn’t have much personality.

Aachen Heads are, of course, recording devices helpful for very precise and realistic sound measurements. He’s shaped like a real guy for a reason. The idea is not only to record and measure sound, but to do so in a way that replicates the acoustic qualities and spatial aspects of a real human being, rather than some sort of traditional audio device or machine. The name Aachen comes from the city in Germany where researchers first invented this device. I think you know the derivation of his last name.

Our colleagues who designed the body structure of the CTS and the manufacturing guys are delivering a car that has exceptional structure and sealing systems for a really quiet cabin – more like what one would associate with a larger, more expensive prestige luxury car.

But at the same time, we don’t want the car to be totally insulated from act of driving. We want the sound to be very quiet, but not absent. The sound that remains should be somewhat pleasing to the ear of a driving enthusiast.

That’s where the Aachen Head comes in handy. We all can sit inside a car and give subjective evaluations of the sound. But that’s not enough. It has to be precise. Mr. Aachen Head comes along with us on some of the development drives to help us.

But he has yet to pick up a check at lunch.

Posted by Editor at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Pretty regularly, we can test cars without even going outdoors. Our Milford facility has several test laboratories in which we do simulations. The other day I snapped this shot of a new CTS during a Dynamometer test in our lab. (Apologies for how dark this photo is ... )

Dynos can be used for several things. In our world, driveline dynos are used for measuring horsepower and torque. This full chassis dyno enables the car to operate fully, yet in a stationary manner via platforms underneath all four wheels that hold the car into place. The fan you see in front of the car blows air into the intake to replicate the airflow that would happen if the car were moving. Those are acoustic tiles all over the walls of the room to enable precise measurements of noise, while the test operators sit outside the room in a booth, with computers monitoring the data. This test is measuring vibration and potential disturbances over various speed ranges.

This is a key test, even at this very late point in the development cycle. While much of a car’s characteristics are highly tuned early on, there can be small variations once all the production parts are seemingly finalized and all working together. These could result in potential detriments in the sound quality, or a slightly different “feel” as the car goes down the road. So we use these dyno tests to measure the consistency of every sound and vibration – not only the quantity of sound and vibration, but also little things such as the exact frequency ranges of these potential disturbances. We’ll even take videos from an underground bay to watch the driveline and chassis as it goes through the test, and also listen to sound recordings on headphones, more on that soon.

Posted by Editor at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By Rob

Some of our testing and driving is fine-tuning all the luxury and performance aspects we intend for Cadillac.

But other stuff, quite frankly, involves beating the heck out of the cars.

On an almost constant basis, we have cars on what we call a Durability Schedule. This means we take a few cars (right now we have three) and subject them to a rigorous series of driving exercises in an attempt to speed up the hands of time, putting them through two or three “lifetimes” in a compressed period.

A typical schedule might be to drive 20,000 miles (one or two years in the “normal” world) in just three or four months. And it is heavy-duty driving, much more punishing than regular use. These 20,000 miles will actually approximate 100,000 miles or more of “normal” consumer use. We do this by taking the cars on unusually rough surfaces, through “corrosion troughs” meant to accelerate wear-and-tear on the paint and bodywork, and lots of other punishing tasks.

You might remember that old pickup truck commercial about the “mountain” of Belgian blocks. We really do that at our Milford, Mich., Proving Grounds, where we have a huge network of roads and test areas. We have team of folks who drive three shifts a day, all day and all night, virtually.

This is monotonous, disciplined stuff. But it provides us with research on the cars that otherwise would take years to accumulate.

Posted by Editor at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

By Liz

As I mentioned recently we are in the midst of one of the major aspects of the launch – that being the Captured Test Fleet. This is a group of 250 or so cars that our team drives every day, as much as possible, to evaluate the very latest and greatest cars in every aspect. Our Captured Test Fleet vehicles have been shipped all over the world. Many of our counterparts are driving our vehicles in Asia and Europe!

Every person driving these cars reports their findings immediately! But there are no reports or papers to fill out. They simply hit the OnStar button. But this form of OnStar is not for flat tires, directions or restaurant reservations or the typical OnStar services consumers enjoy. Via our partnership with OnStar, when we hit the blue button the operator listens to our verbal reports of anything we’re observing in the cars and wish for the team to analyze. Then the OnStar guys post those reports every single day – verbatim – onto a protected website where we go through the data.

All issues are categorized, organized and tracked on this site. This web site is now part of my daily routine. And we also track the mileage accumulation. Our goal is to drive these cars a combined total of more than one million miles. We’re at about 600,000 now, which is on track. This helps us to identify and resolve issues before we start sales. It’s a big tool for gaining insight on improving long-term durability and quality.

I have almost 10,000 miles on my Captured Test Fleet vehicle! More on those issues soon.

Posted by Editor at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

By Rob

The final element of the preview drive was a test session at the Nuerburgring. Great fun, although with quite a bit of seriousness to maximize safety on this most treacherous track. I’m sure the various journalists in the big car magazines will describe this far better.

Suffice it to say it was a unique opportunity and a very thorough introduction to the car . . . sure beats driving back and forth to the grocery store, or sitting in a traffic jam.

Seriously, we felt good about it, as we know that many folks are interested in the car. We certainly can’t take consumers along with us as we drive the car in high-performance settings like this. So this is the next best thing – enabling some journalists to participate with us. And the reports are coming in, as you can see here and here.

Posted by Editor at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

By Rob

After the session at Dudenhofen, the group set off for Nuerburgring. This included a nice route through a series of roads through the countryside.

And, it also necessitated crossing the Rhine River via a ferry near the city of Mainz.

Posted by Editor at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

By Rob

The preview we gave the journalists began at Opel’s test facility at Dudenhofen. This is a great facility. Then we did some driving on their circle track and ride-and-handling loops on at this facility – can’t show you photos of those, as security is strict and we were aiming to be courteous guests of our Opel partners.

The shot you see here in front of the main building in which we conducted in-depth discussions on the car’s design and technology with the journalists.

Posted by Editor at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)